Cathay Horrific: 16 hours of hell

[dajop]

In any event the only other airport in the vicinity of HKG that is not in "mainland" China is Macau (next nearest would be KHH 400 miles away) , and we don't know if that was affected by same storm as HKG. SZX & CAN at least have immigration facilities, but that may not help many of the passengers anyway! Easy to be armchair commentator. Whilst 16 hours in an aircraft after flying from JFK would be frustrating (even moreso knowing final destination could be reached overland in an hour or two), it's vastly superior to some of the alternatives.

 

[JohnK]

Whilst 16 hours in an aircraft after flying from JFK would be frustrating (even moreso knowing final destination could be reached overland in an hour or two), it's vastly superior to some of the alternatives.

I am not disagreeing with you although I wouldn't describe that inconvenience as frustrating. A one hour delay is frustrating.

Too late now and can't do anything about it. Try to avoid the area as much as possible.

 

[aaronjames000]

If you were flying up the pointy end of the plane I'm sure being "stranded" on the ground mightn't be that bad... an extra 16 hours in F... I dream of such things!

 

[TonyHancock]

If you were flying up the pointy end of the plane I'm sure being "stranded" on the ground mightn't be that bad... an extra 16 hours in F... I dream of such things!

LOL, I was thinking along similar lines!!

I wonder if the provisions supplied by the authorities in China were graded F/J/Y. You wouldn't want to run out of the good stuff at the pointy end.

 

[JohnK]

If you were flying up the pointy end of the plane I'm sure being "stranded" on the ground mightn't be that bad... an extra 16 hours in F... I dream of such things!

LOL. I was thinking 74E with Japanese sumo wrestlers either side. :shock:

"Sir, take hour seat!"
"But we are not in the air!"
"Sir, for the last time take your seat."
"Or what?"

Yes I can't think of a better way to spend 16 hours in a tin can on the ground....

 

[TheEmu]

All very curious but not really - welcome to China!
The Macau SAR is pretty much surrounded by the city of Zhuhai, both are on the western side of the Pearl River Delta (so not overland to HKG in a couple of hours).
MFM is about 10 miles north of ZUH on the opposite side of the river mouth to HKG, so possibly similar weather on the western side.
A check of traffic at the time may reveal why CX831 diverted to ZHU rather than MFM. They prolly weren't the only flight looking for somewhere close to roost...
Crew hours was obviously the big reason that they simply couldn't depart after the weather cleared, and then getting Chinese customs/immigration to facilitate some assistance. Regional flights would have had fewer issues with crew hours.
Sure, getting a fresh crew across the delta is only about an hour trip on the fast cats, but if the weather was bad enough to close HKG, the ferries would probably have stopped running as well. Then clearing the passenger backlogs for them when they start again. You may well get a similar scenario when the bridge is finished: i.e. closing it when the weather gets too bad. It's the tropics, weather happens sometimes and you just have to wait it out.
ZUH is supposedly an international airport so no permanent immigration office there is surprising given the customs/immigration required to facilitate movements to/from Macau. The border people would have had less than no interest in going to the airport to assist - not my job, don't want to know (and that's the bosses) - so nothing would have happened until some official edict from way up above, and that can take quite a long time given how frightfully busy such important people like that are. If the minions don't have official authorisation or direct orders for an out-of-the-box situation, they will simply do nothing. Period.
ZUH hosts China's only official airshow bi-annually (in November, even no. years). Ironically, the government is looking at extending the new(ish) 72-hour stay visa to include Zhuhai primarily for airshow visitors. Zhuhai is in Guongdong province whose capital, Guangzhou (CAN), is one of the places allowed to issue the 72-hour visas.

 

[anat0l]

I am not the expert and I look at things slightly differently. There had to have been other choices to land in a civilised airport in case the delay was more than an hour or so. CAN? The pilots must have known the crew would have been out of hours?

And why would it take 16 hours to get new crew across on a short ferry trip? This airport is ~40 miles from HKG so getting it back to HKG could not have been a high priority otherwise it wouldn't have taken that long.

I think I heard on another wire that the weather conditions were so bad, CAN was already swamped with diversions. First in best dressed and all that jazz... I think Zhuhai must have been next on the list.

Not sure if pilots really take into account things like immigration concerns and so on. They had to land, that's it. Not to mention running out of time and fuel. I think we're back to the same kind of speculation as to why SQ decided to divert to Azerbaijan rather than a more... to use the harsh words of some other commentators, "civilised"... diversion airport.

The whole chronicle of unfortunate events (Swiss cheese principle) sure made for a dramatic story afterwards. Word has it, though, that at least they were given food and water. Stuck in a snowstorm on a US tarmac would not only mean a huge punitive bill to the airline, but likely no provisions and damn well lucky if you could be allowed to get up and use the toilet, either.

Maybe the only thing that would've eased the whole situation is if the Chinese government (border controls) were prepared to temporarily grant entry to a plane load of pax for whatever emergency reasons (humanitarian, blah blah, whatever). As expressed here, damn unlikely, let alone getting the human resources to Zhuhai to process them as such.

 

[ermen]

Travelling with a baby, these stories make me worried...