Nigerian woman held up in 26-hour flight delay
Nigerian fitness expert, Bunmi George, has blasted Ethiopian Airlines for “neglecting” African passengers at Bangkok, Thailand.
George, in a video posted on her Instagram page said the airline left passengers heading to Addis Ababa from Bangkok for over 26 hours unattended to, adding that the airline did not give a formal announcement to alert passengers on what had caused the delay and also did not make arrangements for where passengers would stay.
She added that the airline did not issue any apology whatsoever to the waiting clients adding that passengers had to sleep on the floor in the airport.
George said the airline ought to treat Africans with priority since it is African owned, adding that the airline wouldn’t treat passengers heading to North America or the UK in similar manner.
She said, “Ethiopian Airlines in my books you are cancelled. If you are not going to take your clients seriously, you should loose business because you don’t care about the people that fly with you.
“Ethiopian Airlines flight ET609 from Bangkok to Addis Ababa. Our flight was at midnight and we checked in with no issues at all and boarded our flight. We were supposed to take off at 12.30am. At 1am we were still there and my husband started to ask what was happening.
“At 2am they made announcement that there was an issue with the plane that we should be patient, later on they told us to disembark and told us to go back to the gate to wait, because the issue would take longer than usual to fix.
“They knew that they couldn’t fix the issue that night and people needed to know what was happening so that we could make arrangements for hotels or at least find where to sleep cause this was in the middle of the night. We all started scrambling for chairs to seats and some people even slept on the floor and we were there for the next 26hours.
“No information whatsoever from the airline, we were just left there. We didn’t know whether they were rescheduling us, or we would get on another flight, nothing at all. They only put a sign that read ‘No information on ET609’.
“This is inhumane and I put it to you that the only reason why this happened is because this plane was going to Africa. If this plane was going to North America, UK or Europe, this would not happen. How can you provide zero information and no alternative for your clients?” she asked.
George continued, “Everybody should have been checked into a hotel and given some sort of information as to when to return back to the airport.
“At 10pm the next day we still had no information what was happening. A couple of days have passed and still no apology from Ethiopian Airlines.
“It took me 48hours to get back to my family in Nigeria for a trip that would have taken me less than 18hours. There was another passenger that had a business meeting to get to. It was the worst experience,” she concluded.
As at the time of filing this report Ethiopian Airlines Nigeria office could not be reached for comments as their numbers did not connect.
(Punch)
