The boss of an airline flew to an airport to apologise to customers who were caught up in travel chaos.
Chang Kuo-wei, chairman of Starlux Airlines, decided to head to Tokyo Narita Airport in Japan the morning after a flight got stuck on the tarmac there on May 6.
The aviation boss flew to Narita to apologize to passengers personally and was filmed explaining that one flight had been delayed due to "really strong winds."
He was responding to a series of delays that led to people due to be onboard a flight departing at 3.45pm still being at the airport the following morning, Focus Taiwan reports.
The flight was initially delayed due to strong winds, prompting Starlux to move passengers to another flight at about 5.30pm. They trooped onto the plane at about 7pm, only for the departure to be pushed back until 11pm.
Passengers were kept on the plane until almost midnight, when the flight was then cancelled, leading the tired and fed-up customers to head back into the airport terminal, Business Insider reports.
Sleeping bags arrived for the guests at 1pm, who were due to be put on the 6am flight which was then moved to 8am.
The second flight was delayed by an aircraft maintenance check before the flight crew exceeded their permitted working hours, Mr Kuo-wei told passengers when he arrived.
Although a flight curfew had been lifted, immigration officers had finished work by the time the plane was ready to leave, so the airline had to stop the flight from jetting off.
Happily the plane did eventually get up in the air, around 16 hours after it was due to take off.
Unfortunately for those planning to catch a flight this summer, early signs suggest UK airports could be as disrupted this year as they were in 2022.
Last year was one of the most chaotic in the history of UK aviation, as the pressures of post-lockdown worker shortages, Brexit and massively increase demand came together to overload some airports.
Now analysis conducted by AirAdvisor shows that some destinations in Spain, Italy and France could face chaos during the peak holidays.
While the majority of holidaymakers are likely to get through airports with few issues this summer, if you're desperate to minimise potential disruption, you may want to consider other destinations.
Anton Radchenko, CEO of AirAdvisor, trips to Spain are likely to be disrupted, largely due to the sheer number of people who make the journey every summer.
"The UK’s most popular foreign holiday destination is perhaps unsurprisingly one of the regions where travellers are most likely to experience disruptions to their plans, in part down to the sheer volume of flights," he said.
"Between May 7 and June 6 2022, a huge 110 flights to Spain were cancelled, and travellers should prepare for a similar story this summer."
It is worth noting that hundreds of flights take place between the UK and Spain every week, so the actual percentage chance of yours being cancelled won't, hopefully, be too high.
