Originally Posted by
sunrisegirl
I'm sorry but I find it hard to see the criticism of the ground staff here and not make a comment. I do hope the person I spoke with (who was present with the pax) will forgive me in saying a couple of things, but I wish to defend those who worked extremely hard yesterday, during very emotional circumstances.
The passengers were taken to the lounges, hence why the lounges were closed to regular passengers, and had full access to food and drink that is available in there.
Yes, TV's were turned off so as not to alarm the passengers any further following their traumatic experience.
It's correct they were unable to obtain their belongings, including passports, etc, but they were given (very reasonable) funds to assist them until these become available.
I cannot, and will not, add to this as it would not be fair on the individual who gave me this information. I'm only saying this as there are so many incorrect posts on here right now.
It's disappointing that some are insulting ground staff when they are unaware of facts.
To be fair the BBC has reports from THREE passengers making the comments that some of us have responded to.
As well as Mark Tamburro's comments
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7196128.stm
There's also video footage of Chloe Richards and Ian Newborn shown on BBC News24 (there's a link on
this page on the right "Passengers describe evacuation" showing these pax) saying very similar things. (I can't open that link, but I can see this one:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc6_1200603997&c=1 the comments I've reacted to come after the 3 minute mark)
These are much better 'facts' than those presented by anyone else here (including yours, sorry!).
I'm sure the staff did everything they were supposed to, it just seems the procedures they follow really suck from the point of view of anyone who has to go through them.