01 December 2008

Qantas organises plane for stranded Thailand travellers

ABC says Qantas will operate a special service from Phuket to Singapore tomorrow night to rescue Australian tourists stranded in Thailand.

Thai police have yet to move thousands of protesters out of Bangkok's commercial airports, five days after they took over the sites.

Qantas will send an A330 Airbus to Phuket, which can carry almost 300 passengers.

A Qantas spokesman says the airline has been granted approval from Thai authorities to operate a flight between Phuket and Singapore tomorrow night, phuket time.

Existing Qantas ticket holders will be given first priority on the 300 seat plane, with remaining seats to then be made available to Australian nationals.

An Australian women who was stranded at the international airport says she feels lucky to be back in one piece.

Clare Nash says was stranded at the international terminal for three nights, but she was put on a Qantas flight with five friends yesterday and arrived in Brisbane this morning.

"It was absolute bedlam, you know it was absolute chaos, they had three sets of stairs for all these aircraft and you were packed in like sardines so we were very lucky," she said.

A Report by The Mole