2,000 passengers stranded overnight at Hong Kong airport due to Typhoon Noul

Airport Authority provides additional 600 seats and food for travellers, while some lament hotel room rates increasing from HK$2,000 to HK$3,000 Hong Kong’s Airport Authority provided about 600 additional seats for stranded passengers. Photo: Dickson Lee About 2,000 passengers were stranded overnight at Hong Kong International Airport as Typhoon Noul battered the city, with some dismayed by their disrupted journeys while others complained about hotel room rates that had risen from HK$2,000 (US$255) to HK$3,000 per night. In the airport’s departure hall, almost all the chairs were occupied on Sunday morning, with some passengers sitting on luggage trolleys. Many slept on benches, while others anxiously checked the status of flights on their phones. Yeung Tat-wing, the Airport Authority’s director of service delivery, said the airport was expected to handle a total of 675 flights on Sunday, while 350 had been cancelled. At least 29 departure and 20 arrival flights were cancelled on Saturday. Yeung said most flights would resume on Sunday afternoon and all three runways would operate overnight if necessary. Airport Express services resumed at 9am on Sunday, and Yeung said he hoped all airport operations would return to normal by Monday morning. While many flights were grounded over the weekend, a check on the authority’s website showed that 70 flights landed in Hong Kong between 10.10pm on Saturday and 12.40pm on Sunday, when the Observatory issued the No 8 and No 9 storm signals. Yeung said that around 2,000 people had stayed overnight at the airport, most of them departing passengers. About 2,000 passengers were stranded overnight at Hong Kong International Airport. Photo: Dickson Lee He added that the authority had provided 600 additional seats in the airport’s waiting areas and deployed about 100 staff members to hand out food and drinks to stranded travellers. Tong, a traveller from Hangzhou, arrived in Hong Kong at 10pm on Saturday night with his family. They were en route to Malaysia but their connecting flight was cancelled because of the typhoon and rescheduled for Monday morning. He acknowledged that the disruption was caused by “uncontrollable factors” but said the situation was troublesome, as many hotels were packed and that some room rates had gone up from HK$2,000 to as high as HK$3,000 per night. Tong added that adults could manage the discomfort but the situation was especially tiring with a young child in tow. Bernard Duyao, a Filipino tourist heading to Manila after a holiday in Hong Kong, travelled to the airport on a tour bus at 4pm on Sunday. But his flight was cancelled and he had to stay in Hong Kong for another two nights. Unhandled type: inline-plus-widget {"type":"inline-plus-widget"} “It’s disappointing, but it’s up to nature – we can’t do anything about this,” he said, adding that he planned to return to the city centre and check into a hotel once the weather cleared. Duyao suggested that the airport install longer lounge chairs for passengers, such as those available at airports in Dubai and Turkey. About 100 Airport Authority staff were deployed to hand out food and drinks to stranded passengers. Photo: Handout Adriano Cavarra, 17, who flew from Turkey, was among the passengers whose flights arrived in the city during the storm. He said his flight from Istanbul had been slightly turbulent as it approached Hong Kong, but he had felt generally safe. “I’m very happy that we landed safely, and now I’m happy to have a vacation with my family here in Hong Kong,” he said. Cathay Pacific said that flight services would gradually resume in the late afternoon, after more than 200 flights had been cancelled earlier. Hong Kong Airlines said most of its flights would continue to operate on Sunday, including around 70 flights that had been scheduled from morning to noon. Hong Kong Express also said around 118 of its flights would operate throughout the day, with all services expected to return to normal by Monday morning. Besides flights, the cross-border high-speed rail service was also affected. Rail operator, the MTR Corporation, said that it had been notified by mainland Chinese railway authorities that all high-speed rail trips between Hong Kong’s West Kowloon station and mainland destinations before 4pm on Sunday were cancelled. A check on the MTR website showed 194 train services had been cancelled on Sunday and six on Monday. At around 2pm on Sunday, passengers queued at the counters at West Kowloon station to book, reschedule or cancel their trips, with many sitting on chairs and the floor. Some bought food from nearby restaurants, waiting for services to resume. Vista Qin, who planned to head to Shenzhen to renew his visa at noon, had to re-book a 4.10pm ticket to Futian, but said he spent less than 10 minutes on the waiting list. He said the change did not cause too much inconvenience because it was the weekend and he had no urgent appointments. Additional reporting by Kristen Cheung