“I heard about this plane like everyone else last week. I thought people were exaggerating a bit, but in the end they weren’t at all,” begins Sabrina (assumed first name). The passenger had a plan with her family to travel through Mauritius to Kuala Lumpur and then to Singapore.
To their great astonishment, the passengers discover their plane. An all-white fuselage A320-200 flying the Maltese flag. The most disturbing thing is yet to come. They take place and the very noble stand of the device immediately catches the eye.
“A Fighter Plane”
“There was no ‘first class’ compartment, the seats were screenless, so we had no indication of the flight and route, for example. There was not even a connection for headphones with music transmission, in short, there was like a fighter plane,” she compares the level of performance of the device reduced to the bare minimum.
The toilets also turned out to be a luxury. “The toilets were inaccessible for 3 hours because there was so much turbulence” out of the 7 hours counted by the liaison. “Among the passengers were elderly people, children, it was difficult, you could tell from their faces that people were not well, they held back.” Finally, before landing, the flight crew gave the instruction that it was possible to go to the toilet for 10 minutes, giving priority to the elderly.
Another in-flight pitfall, Tuesday morning breakfast was not provided, further complicating the parents’ task of responding to their children’s impatience. In the same comfort range, there was no place for changing diapers in the stroller.
If the passengers could obviously converse in English with the hostesses and stewards on this plane chartered in Malta, our passenger from Reunion explains that one steward spoke French very well. But overall, “the staff themselves regretted it. They were there, let’s say, to perform,” she adds.
Even before the trip, the launch preparation itself was stressful. “It’s not supposed to lie, it’s not a psychosis. When we spot the plane, we feel trapped. We either tell ourselves ‘we’re staying’, or we tell ourselves ‘it’s a shame we’re taking it at our own risk. And yet, I fly a lot… I imagine a plane has all the necessary permits to fly, but this one wasn’t reassuring at all. When it takes off, we immediately smell the kerosene smell. We felt all the turbulence,” she said conveys their impression.
After the 7 hours of this night flight, which therefore seemed very long to the passengers, some were doubly penalized upon arrival in Kuala. Flight MK 229 Reunion – Mauritius was supposed to depart at 15:15, it finally arrived in Mauritius at 19:00. Subsequently, the Mauritius – Kuala Lumpur flight, which was scheduled to depart at 22:30 on Monday 2 January, finally left Mauritius at around 23:50.
Those who missed their correspondence blame the blow
These two consecutive delays meant that quite a few passengers missed their scheduled connection to another Asian country.
Such is the case of Sabrina, whose final destination was Singapore. As a result of the races, she preferred not to go to Singapore, which she would have liked to see again.
“I’m not going to enjoy paying Air Asia tickets and other lodging expenses back,” she says, accompanied by her husband and two children. Your ten-day stay in Asia will therefore be limited to the capital of Malaysia. Like her, they would be forty other passengers who had missed their connection.
If Sabrina already knows Kuala Lumpur and, with a good knowledge of English, can cope with the country’s codes, she is sad that other passengers are completely dropped. “Apparently there are no Air Mauritius staff here to guide them. I have seen families from Reunion in tears. Some should enter Thailand, but since Monday and Tuesday are public holidays here, there are no more flights for them. So some are like scared people at the airport,” she says of her dismay.
As for her, Sabrina is already wondering if in ten days she will be entitled to the same low-cost plane or to that of the Air Mauritus fleet with the status corresponding to the price paid.