11 August 2009

Crying babies, overflowing toilets

The screeners had gone home for the day. A bus was not available. So 47 passengers spent the night trapped inside a small plane in a move that is bound to lead for more calls for passenger rights.

"This was a sardine can, with a single row of seats on one side of the plane and two rows of seats on the other. And they've got about 50 people inside, including babies, for the whole night. It was a nightmare," passenger Link Christin told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

"I was a passenger on flight 2816. I now know hell. Being stuck on that plane for 9.5 hours, 7 hours on the ground, was no picnic. The captain was not communicating with us at all, and what she did tell us seemed like stalling," said one passenger.

The passengers were aboard a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Minneapolis.

The operator of the flight, ExpressJet Airlines, said it was diverted because of thunderstorms and that airline regulations prevented passengers from getting off the plane.

Christin said he was "incredulous" that the airlines could not figure out an option instead of trapping passengers on the plane for nine hours.

"There's no reason to keep people on a grounded plane that long," wrote one blogger.

"These people (passengers) deserve refunds immediately," wrote another.

by David Wilkening