A passenger whose household was left stranded on Christmas Eve after the flight they had been on was pressured to land in Azerbaijan has revealed the extent of the chaos that unfolded.
On December 24, a Qantas flight from Singapore to Heathrow was pressured to land at Baku Airport in Azerbaijan after studies the smoke alarm had been triggered within the cargo maintain.
Kylie Palmqvist and her household had been on-board the flight, after catching a 5pm flight from Sydney via to Singapore on their method to London.
Ms Palmqvist was born in Sweden, however has lived in Sydney along with her household for about 12 years.
“About half way through the flight from Singapore to Heathrow, my daughter said to me that the plane is now flying the wrong way on the flight map, and she was right, although we didn’t hear anything from the crew for another 10 minutes,” Ms Palmqvist advised NCA NewsWire.
She mentioned they had been then suggested the plane could be touchdown in Azerbaijan due to the smoke alarm on-board.
“The pilot kept saying ‘safety first,’ which is of course the right attitude, although to be honest the pilot seemed a little over cautious from the get go on the plane,” she mentioned.
“Landing in Azerbaijan was exciting, being met by lots of flashing lights, fire trucks and emergency vehicles but, I have to say that is where the excitement ended.”
After disembarking the plane, the passengers had been then transported to the terminal through bus.
There, they had been advised the workforce hoped they may test the aircraft and be on their approach inside just a few hours, however Ms Palmqvist and her household, in addition to the opposite passengers, sat within the airport for 11 hours.
“We literally sat in the airport with no information for what turned out to be 11 hours,” she mentioned.
“I can understand in this time that Qantas was trying to decide what to do with 356 passengers, but this was the start of what I now can say was a complete lack of communication between the passengers and Qantas.”
In a press release launched by the airline on Christmas Eve, Qantas mentioned they had been speaking with these affected.
“We’re providing regular updates to customers on the recovery plan,” Qantas mentioned.
After 11 hours of ready with out data, Ms Palmqvist mentioned Baku Airport workers started manually getting into passports into their system.
“This process was facilitated through the use of a big plastic bag where each of us placed our passports and just crossed our fingers that they would come back.
“The return of our passports was interesting, Qantas staff and proactive passengers yelling names out and just hoping we were all honest, which of course we were.”
From there, the passengers had been transported to the Marriott Hotel in Baku, the place it took them one other hour to test in.
“We were lucky enough to get ahead of the crowd, it still took us almost an hour to check in, but those poor souls that came in after us, it took them hours.”
She mentioned the room smelled of sewage, however she was simply joyful to have a mattress to lie in after ready on the airport for therefore lengthy.
Despite the confusion and the inconvenience, Ms Palmqvist mentioned Baku was a lovely metropolis, and a spot she by no means would have visited if the “emergency” hadn’t occurred.
“We were going to make a good thing from a bad situation and we enjoyed walking through the city on (Christmas Eve).”
Also celebrating her daughter’s 14th birthday, Kylie mentioned it was an surprising shock she spent her big day in a international metropolis.
“She couldn’t have expected to spend it in Azerbaijan, she would have rather spent it in Sweden, celebrating Christmas and her birthday with her family – some of whom she hasn’t seen in over seven years,” Ms Palmqvist mentioned.
“My biggest issue with the whole situation was that we only received a few text messages informing us about what was happening – I know I woke a few times during the night checking to see if there was any information which there wasn’t, and being Christmas everyone was wanting to be with their loved ones.”
She mentioned after they lastly boarded the restoration Qantas flight, workers, who had been in the identical state of affairs as passengers, had been thanking everybody for his or her understanding.
“They were thanking us for our understanding and congratulating each other for how the situation was handled, but they had no information about what would happen when we arrived in the UK, saying that people would meet us at the gate on arrival which of course (they didn’t).
“I saw many distressed customers who simply had no information about what to do next.”
As they lastly arrived in Heathrow after such a delayed journey, they had been confronted with extra chaos.
Ms Palmqvist mentioned they’d already missed two connecting flights, and needed to try to work out the place their baggage had ended up.
“Let’s say that my husband, myself and our three teenage kids were at our wits end,” she mentioned.
“With tears in my eyes we had to make a decision, try and get the next connecting flight or go back and see if we could find our luggage.
She said she was thankful for the trackable Apple tags that were on their luggage, as she was able to track them to a nearby terminal.
Chatting to NCA NewsWire while still on their journey, Kylie said they still had four hours to wait until their third connecting flight, with the family still hopeful they’ll be able to make it to their final destination.
After finally landing in Copenhagen, the family then had another 3 hour drive to Gothenburg where their family lives.
“After a 27 hour adventure, we made it at 1am and went straight to sleep.”
“How does Qantas make up for that?”
On Christmas Eve, the airline acknowledged the incident’s impression on prospects’ plans.
“We know this has been a significant disruption for customers ahead of Christmas, however we will always put safety before schedule,” the airline mentioned.
“We have apologised and thank them for their patience while we finalised the recovery plans.”
Qantas has been contacted for feedback.
