A Qantas flight to the Philippines for Chinese New Year never arrived on Sunday as power outages at the destination left tens of thousands of international travelers in disarray.
Flight QF19 bound for Manila departed Sydney at 12.39pm when the pilot informed them they had to turn around just three hours into the flight.
More than 360 Manila-bound flights were affected by the five-hour closure of the city’s airspace, with flights canceled or diverted to Hong Kong or Bangkok airports.
Philippine Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista told AFP that the outage disrupted communications, radio, radar and the internet, and eventually the air traffic management center.
“The second issue is that the power surge from the outage affected the equipment,” he said.
A Qantas spokesman said the flight was unable to reach Manila due to the closure of local airspace by local authorities.
NCA Newswire has been told the flight refueled in Sydney and took off again on Sunday night.
At least 56,000 passengers were thrown into chaos, with countless flights turned around in midair or stranded on the tarmac for hours.
Many took to social media to vent their anger at the situation, including Filipino businessman Manny Pangilinan.
“The inconvenience to travelers and the loss to tourism & business from a six hour useless flight is horrendous. Only in PH. Sigh,” he tweeted.
“Those of us who experienced this glitch flying out of Manila are still stuck in Incheon,” another user wrote on Monday morning AEDT.
“Can’t sleep, so tired. Not sure we’ll get a seat where we’re going on the next flight,” they said.
“First flight in 2023 didn’t go as planned. Spent 4 hours on plane before getting off,” wrote a third user.
The air traffic management system was partially restored at 4pm (1900 AEDT) and flights were allowed to take off and land at the airport.
Less than 24 hours ago, a United Airlines flight carrying 300 passengers to Sydney for New Year’s Eve was forced to make an emergency landing in American Samoa.
United Flight 839 landed at Pago Pago Airport at around 6:22 a.m. Saturday morning due to a “mechanical issue.”
“We are utilizing our facilities, including available hotel options, to host our customers and will fly to the island on a new aircraft so they can complete their trip to Sydney as quickly as possible,” the airline said in a statement. stated in the statement.
A relative of a passenger said on Twitter that locals on the island were taking care of those on board.
“My daughter is trapped right now,” one man tweeted.
“They (passengers) are showering on hangers, touring islands, drinking beers on deserted beaches.”
