A 21 hour delay for Scoot flight TZ8 from Singapore to Perth caused many passengers to run riot at Changi Airport. The plane, which was originally scheduled to depart from Singapore at 12.10pm on Saturday (20 June), would only depart at 9.50am on Sunday morning (21 June) due to a technical issue. Despite the 21 hour delay, the flight only took off at 10.42am, instead of the scheduled time of 9.50am.
Multiple delays, Multiple excuses.
Mr Will Scarlet, who was a passenger of the flight, shared his account of the delay on YouTube. His account takes issue with the lack of care for the vulnerable like the elderly and the young and the failure of Scoot to provide accommodation and transport for the affected passengers.
[youtube id=”muGbhWvSofw” align=”center” mode=”normal”]We requested that priority passengers (elderly and with children) be provided with a flight on an alternative airline and was rejected at every turn by the Scoot rep. Passengers searched and confirmed availability despite being told there was none.
The flight has been rescheduled 7 times so far. We boarded and disembarked the flight twice due to tyres being worn beyond safety regulations (as advised by the captain) and then at approx 18.30 due to the staff exceeding the duty allowance onboard (as advised by the captain). Due to other regulations the captain had to leave to sleep and we are currently stuck here with no one to help. A women was also pushed by a member of scoot staff or changi airport staff (at this point it is unclear) but the video captures this moment.
The duty of care provided and inhumanity of this business model is alarming, but the way people came together to protest as one was inspiring and unheard of in Singapore.
In another video, Mr Scarlett could clearly be heard shouting “This man’s job (Scoot Representative) is to make us keep quiet and go home, that is what we should not do. Stay united!”
No Transport and Accommodation for overnight delay.
As evident in the many comments on Scoot’s Facebook page, one of the passenger’s main grievances was how there was no transport and accommodation provided despite the overnight delay. TOC also understands that Singaporeans were told to return home while foreigners were left stranded at the airport.
Ms Tay Yu Ting shares her account of the announcement.
The spokesperson who was sent down told us that “Singaporeans to go home and as for foreigners, we apologize that scoot’s policy do not offer hotel stay for you”. Shouldn’t scoot be more professional by offering a place to sleep instead of asking Singaporeans to go home and asking foreigners to find a solution themselves?
This approach, however, was inconsistent with the accommodation provided by Scoot just two days earlier when a Scoot flight from Hong Kong was delayed by 23 hours. When Scoot flight TZ 221 which was scheduled to depart from Hong Kong at 7.10am on June 19 was delayed till 7pm on June 20, affected passengers were provided accommodation at a Hong Kong hotel.
This inconsistency was one of the arguments raised by the affected passengers of TZ8 as to why they should be entitled to accommodation and transport for the overnight delay.
