Astraeus Airline Passangers Stranded at KIA

Astraeus Airline passengers leaving Accra to Gatwick, London, were last Friday night forced to sleep in a cockroach infested hotel at East Legon, after being stranded at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) for over five hours.

As early as 16.00 hours on April 7, check in time, the airline announced flight number 5W 098, scheduled for departure at 20.30 hours, would delay till 06.30 hours on April 8, for technical reasons. Airline officials however, did not make arrangements to accommodate stranded passengers until after 21.00 hours when the passengers, including yours truly, have agitated for hours.

One Mr. Awuah, Airport Manager of the airline resorted to convincing passengers of African decent to go home and return the next morning, whiles a few light-skinned passengers were allegedly properly sorted out by airline officials earlier in the day.

Agitating passengers, mainly Ghanaians, were met with a numbers of rude remarks from airline officials, the worse of which came from one Mr. Samuel Rechill, Local Operations Manager of the airline, that "these delays are normal "even Ghana Airways was worse."

The Operations Manager only showed up after hours of agitation and frantic calls to his mobile phone by Mr. Awuah, all which proved pretty much futile until about 20.45 hours.

When confronted by stranded passengers, Mr. Rechill said, ?I am making arrangements to check you all into a hotel and give you dinner and one minute phone call each and that should be ok.

At exactly 21.05 hours, Mr. Rechill brought in two mini vans from Ampomaah Hotel and asked the van drivers to take16 stranded passengers away, but refused to accompany them to the hotel to ensure their comfort.

The stranded passengers were greeted with another chunk of rude treatment by hotel staff, who insisted that the passengers would have to put up with the cockroaches and with heat in the rooms.

Some passengers, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency also insisted that the airline short-changed their comfort with "that raw deal of a cockroach infested hotel arrangement", saying the normal practice was for the airline to have checked passengers into a hotel of at least a three star standard and paid for at least 15 minutes of call for each person.

Mr. David Amoafo, one of the stranded passengers found at least two mega sized roaches in his room 102 and cockroach droppings in the wardrobes and drawers. Other passengers spoke of similar experiences and of the high room temperatures, which made sleep virtually impossible for them.

When the night auditor at the hotel, one Prosper, was informed of the presence of the roaches, he first laughed about it and then passed remarks like, "how could cockroaches harm you "don't you have cockroaches in your homes " you think because you travel to London so we should bow to you."

Another Ghanaian lady resident in London, who pleaded anonymity, told the GNA that she worked with Securicom, security company in London and she was on the verge of losing her job because when she called and told her boss in London about the one day delay, the boss insisted that if she reported a day late to work she should consider herself fired.

Mr. Patrick York, another Ghanaian resident in London also told the GNA that his wife, Evelyn, misplaced her ticket and had to pay 550 pounds sterling to Astraeus for another ticket, even though her name showed up on the flight manifest as proof of the fact that she had bought a ticket already.

Mr. York said he and his wife needed to make London on Saturday morning so he paid the 550 pounds sterling, but Astraeus delayed them one day and the airline wants to just get of the hook with some cockroach infested hotel accommodation and dinner.

Other passengers spoke of appointments they would miss in London because of the delay, which could cost them money.

Meanwhile, Astraeus listed conditions for passengers travelling with the airline clearly stated that a change of flight date would cost a passenger 300 US dollars of 170 pounds sterling and an additional kilo of luggage would cost 10 pounds sterling, but they did not state what their responsibility towards the passenger would be in the event of flight delays like the one on Friday night.

Earlier in the day on Friday about 200 stranded passengers, apparently tired of the hours of long waiting and rude remarks from airline officials, left the airport presumably to their homes.