Furious Chinese passengers refused to leave a plane at Hong Kong airport

Furious Chinese passengers refused to leave a plane at Hong Kong airport for several hours until they were paid compensation for flight delays.

The protest sit-in began when the Hong Kong Airlines plane landed around 5.30am local time on Wednesday from Singapore, airline spokeswoman Eva Chan.

The Airbus 330 carrying 159 passengers had been delayed in Singapore for almost nine hours due to a technical fault and a fracas between two groups of passengers which left an old Chinese women with an injured hand.

The airline offered the passengers HK$400 (US$51) each by way of compensation but 80 of them rejected the offer and refused to leave the plane in Hong Kong until they received more money, she said.

Fifty nine passengers gave up their sit-in and left the aircraft at 9:00 am but the remaining 21 — including a tour group from Shenzhen and four travellers from Hong Kong — remained on board.

Police were called to the scene as the crew tried to negotiate with the passengers inside the cabin.

Ninety minutes later the passengers agreed to disembark, but they continued their protest inside the airport. The protest finally ended around 1:30pm when the airline raised their compensation to HK$1,200 each.

Chan said the airline apologized for the inconvenience caused by the plane’s technical problem, but added that up to two hours of the delay in Singapore was due to the protest actions of the passengers.

Source AFP