Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight SV771 originated in Jeddah and made a scheduled stop to pick up more passengers in Dammam before heading to Chennai in India.
After pulling out on the tarmac at 12:45 a.m. Thursday, the plane sat for about two hours before cabin crew announced the passengers would be offloaded so the aircraft could be repaired. A lack of communication between technicians and airline staff led to the passengers being crowded into a waiting area where they were forced to languor with little water and no food until 8 a.m. when they were served a piece of bread.
An airline spokesman said the passengers remained sequestered because they did not want to have the passengers go through immigration a second and third time and that the nearest hotels were many kilometers away from the remote airport.
Among the passengers were women with infant children; they were forced to starve and thirst along with the rest of the castaways.
Chandra Babu Aparthasarthi raced back to the airport when his wife, Gajalaxmi, phoned to share her plight and that of their one-year-old son, Ishant. As they were held beyond the immigration lanes, Aparthasarthi was unable to see them or help them in any way.
“Ishant kept crying for milk,” Aparthasarthi told Arab News. “My wife asked the airline attendants for milk. They said it is not available and instead provided a little water bottle. My wife mixed sugar in the water and pacified our child. There was no word from the airline as to when the flight would take off and when would their ordeal end.”
As the hours wore on, some of the stranded passengers used newspaper pages for bedding, and carry-on bags became pillows — with no end to the nightmare in sight.
One castaway used a cell phone to record the misery of the passengers — thirsty and hungry and trying to make the best of an outrageous situation.
Frantic passengers called up newspaper offices, and Arab News received a call at 10 a.m. from harried passengers. “While we can understand that there is nothing one can do about technical faults, what is totally inexplicable is why did the airline not lodge the passengers at a proper hotel? We are not beggars; we are their customers — their passengers,” said one of the passengers from inside the hall. “This is total contravention of the rules, which clearly state that airlines are supposed to provide their passengers with hotel accommodation if the delay exceeds five hours.”
When Arab News contacted a spokesperson for Saudia in Jeddah, he said his men in Dammam were doing all they can to alleviate the suffering of the passengers.
“Our problem was that the technical division people did not tell us as to how long it would take to fix the problem. Since I am not a technical person, I did not know the exact nature of the problem,” the spokesman said. “Also, there were not enough rooms available at the nearest hotels. When we decided to shift them to hotels we got the word that the plane is almost ready. If we had taken the passengers to the hotel it would have meant the loss of more than two hours and the redoing of the immigration work.” He did express deep regret for the inconvenience caused to the SV771 passengers.
It was small consolation for the hungry infants, women, wheelchair-bound infirm and breadwinners forced into a limbo without information or even a guess when the ordeal might end.
“We were not sitting in the middle of the desert. We were at one of the best airports in the Kingdom. There are coffee shops and a number of cafeterias at the airport. Food and water and tea could have been easily arranged,” said another passenger. “The airline staff would not even speak to us. We did not know what was happening. It was chaos.”
Finally, Aparthasarthi said at 1 p.m. — almost 12 hours after departure time — Saudia decided to serve the passengers a lunch, and it was then the airline announced that the flight would take off at 5 p.m., which it did. Aparthasarthi said it was a difficult ordeal.
“We had left home in Dammam at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, and the flight left nearly 21 hours later,” he said. “I felt very bad for my son. He had no milk. For us adults we can manage. That is not a problem — but for a one-year-old?”
Shamshad Ali, who also was among the passengers, said he always flies Saudia. “I always preferred Saudia and would still prefer Saudia. I never had complaints in the past. My travel had always been hassle-free. But what happened in the night intervening Wednesday and Thursday has left a bad taste in my mouth. They should have kept us informed at least as to what was happening. I can understand their situation, but they did not understand ours,” he told Arab News on phone from Chennai.
