Source: China Daily HK Edition Author: Peggy Chan, Teddy Ng 05/14/2008
Subject Concerned: Airlines Flight Delay Air Travel in China
On May 13, a total of nine flights in Hong Kong - five arrivals and four departures - were affected by an earthquake and aftershocks in southwest China's Sichuan province.
Dragonair flight KA825 and Hong Kong Express Airways flight UO457 were two arrival flights that got canceled.
A spokesman for Dragonair said all rebooking and rerouting charges will be waived for tickets issued worldwide on or before May 12 for travel to and from Chengdu and Chongqing between May 12 and May 26 inclusively.
The airline has also arranged hotel accommodation for passengers with KA820 tickets traveling from Hong Kong to Chengdu. The departure time of the flight was delayed from 10:20am on May 13 to 9:30am on May 14.
Miss Hu, a 16-year-old student studying in the United States, planned to fly to Chengdu to visit her family in the morning on May 13.
The flight she took had been delayed to 12:20pm from 11:10am.
She learnt about the disaster on May 12 but she could not contact her family. Hu was not very worried though as she believed they would be fine.
A tour group of China Travel Service (Hong Kong) to Chengdu which was supposed to return to Hong Kong on May 12 arrived at the Hong Kong airport in the morning on May 13.
The tour was comprised of 18 people and was checking in at the Chengdu airport when the earthquake struck Sichuan.
A 78-year-old Hong Kong resident surnamed Hung said his mind went blank at that time. "It was so sudden," he said.
It felt like a war was going on, he told reporters. Fortunately nobody was hurt at the airport.
The tour group was forced to spend the night in a Chengdu hotel.