Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - 42 SAA pax "mistakenly left behind"

"PASSENGERS aboard an afternoon flight on a South African Airways (Flight SA 64) plane from Johannesburg on Tuesday were furious after the plane U-turned 40 minutes after take-off.

According to some passengers that were on the plane, the decision to fly back to the airport was prompted by the fact that some 42 passengers who were booked on the same flight were mistakenly left behind after an airport transfer bus took them to a wrong plane. The plane's captain was contacted about 40 minutes after take-off to fly back to Johannesburg and pick up the passengers.

According to passengers, the captain was apologetic and said it was the first time that such a thing had happened in his career.

Under normal circumstances, a plane would only fly back when it has a fault or when there is bad weather.

The plane was scheduled to arrive at Lusaka International Airport at 13:30 hours but it only arrived at 15:00 hours after a delay of about one hour at Johannesburg International Airport."

Source : allAfrica.com (http://allafrica.com/stories/200512010768.html)

Amazing!

Johan

Amazing!Johan

Being a regular traveller on this route and a frequent customer of the 'excellent' airport services in JNB I am only surprised that this happens apparently for the frist time... :D

Somehow this doesnt surprise me one bit! Welcome to Africa!

How can one possibly miss 42 passengers?!!! Did the FA not do a count before the doors closed? :confused:

I guess some gate agent decided there were a lot of no-shows, and closed the flight. Wonder how the pax on the mis-directed bus discovered they were on the wrong plane, and why nobody from that flight or gate contacted the gate where these folks should have been?

I can understand flying back to pick them up, as there is likely not another flight to Lusaka that day and it would have been cheaper for SAA to do the U-turn, than put everyone up overnight (among other things).

I guess some gate agent decided there were a lot of no-shows, and closed the flight. :confused: The gate agent would surely have assumed the passengers had boarded since they had all been processed at the gate?

I can understand flying back to pick them up, as there is likely not another flight to Lusaka that day and it would have been cheaper for SAA to do the U-turn, than put everyone up overnight (among other things). Also, they would now be flying with a lot of unaccompanied luggage!

ACSA and SAA: a match made in hell. :rolleyes: