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Air carrier apologizes after sick passenger complained online that gate failed to open quickly for him
CHINA Southern Airlines today apologized to a passenger after he complained on the Internet that the carrier failed to open cabin gate after landing to take him to hospital after he suffered acute intestinal illness in the air.
The passenger said the Guangzhou-based carrier opened the cabin gate 50 minutes after landing while the cabin crews refused to carry him to the apron though he had been deadly painful.
The male who described himself as a senior reporter with a provincial level media in northeast China’s Liaoning Province said he felt stomachache five minutes after the flight CZ6101 from Shenyang to Beijing took off around 8:20am on November 9.
He reported the flight attendant who asked the captain to call an ambulance to wait at the Beijing Capital International Airport.
However, after the aircraft landed at 9:50am, the captain failed to let him get off immediately but opened the gate 50 minutes later.
“The crew said the air traffic controllers failed to reply so they had to wait,” the passenger said. “I was wondering whether the previous reports about how the airline acted rapidly to help saving passenger’s lives were true.”
After the gate was opened at 10:30am, the crew members argued with two doctors on the ambulance with the airport hospital about who should carry him down to the ambulance.
The passenger then climbed down to the ambulance by himself despite the strong painfulness.
He was finally sent to the Peking University People’s Hospital 15 hours after the flight landed.
He was diagnosed with acute intestinal obstruction and accepted an emergent surgery to cut part of his dead intestine, according to the passenger.
He then wrote the microblog that has received over 10,000 retweets and 6,000 comments, mostly criticized the China Southern.
“I don’t want any apology or compensation but only request the carriers should save time when they encounter similar cases in future,” he said.
China Southern has sent related department leaders to watch and apologize to the passenger, the airline said in a statement.
An internal investigation found the aircraft suffered malfunction on its brake system after landing, so it had to wait for the tow truck to take it to apron before opening the cabin gate, the carrier said.
“The airline will negotiate with the medical workers at the airport to improve the process to hand over patients,” it added.
Some netizens argued on the Internet that the carrier had no responsibility because the captain had to wait for the orders from the air traffic controllers to open the gate.
“It is impossible to risk flying safety for a single passenger,” the netizen who worked in the civil aviation industry but asked to be anonymous said.
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