Singapore Airlines apologizes

Singapore Airlines apologizes

I refer to Mr. Izhar's letter which appeared in The Jakarta
post of April 10, 1996.

Firstly, allow me to apologize for the delays encountered by
Mr. Izhar when he traveled with us recently.

SQ151 on March 15, 1996 originally left the departure gate at
7:32 a.m. A technical fault developed with one of the engines and
the aircraft returned to the boarding gate at 7:47 a.m. Our
engineers then had to determine the fault. At 8 a.m. the captain
was advised that it would take at least two hours to rectify the
problem. Passengers were advised accordingly and allowed to
disembark from the plane. Ground staff were made available to
answer their queries. It was not possible to transfer all
passengers to other flights as most flights on that day were
fully booked. Under such circumstances, preference is given to
passengers traveling in first and Raffles class, priority
passengers and those with urgent or compassionate reasons. The
problem with the aircraft was rectified at 10:10 a.m. and the
passengers were boarded soon after. It departed at 10:50 a.m.

SQ158/26 was initially delayed for 30 minutes due to a defect
in one of the engine's thrust reversers. An announcement was made
by the captain at 3:30 p.m. that a delay of 20 minutes was
expected while the fault was rectified. Unfortunately, the
engineers took an additional 10 minutes to complete the repairs.
At 4 p.m., the captain was advised that no clearance for take-off
could be granted until 5 p.m. as Changi Airport was closed for a
planned air defense exercise. Again, this was advised to
passengers on-board by the captain.

Refreshments were made available to passengers who chose to
wait on-board. I am sorry that a ground staffer gave Mr. Izhar
the wrong information that Soekarno-Hatta Airport was closed
instead.

PAUL TAN

General Manager Indonesia

Singapore Airlines, Jakarta