Passengers on an Etihad Airways flight from Abu Dhabi to San Francisco were held on the tarmac at the Middle East airport for 12 hours before they allowed to fly to California, the Associated Press reports.
The United Arab Emirates-based airline attributed the delay to foggy weather conditions in Abu Dhabi, according to the report.
Passengers complained the airline provided little information during the lengthy delay.
“They kept telling us that we were going to leave, you know 15 minutes from now, 20 minutes from now, 30 minutes for now, for 12 hours,” passenger Thomas Piani told San Francisco TV station KGO after the flight landed.
Etihad Air, which made headlines around Christmas by mistakenly offering deeply discounted international flights, said the delays at the Abu Dhabi airport were unavoidable.
“Dense fog blanketed Abu Dhabi International Airport (AUH), forcing the closure of the operating runway in the middle of a peak travel period. This prevented arriving and departing flights by all airlines, but had the most impact on Etihad Airways, which is based in Abu Dhabi,” the airline posted on its Facebook page.
“The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the airport closure occurred during a holiday weekend in Abu Dhabi, and with major events occurring in the city, attracting large numbers of visitors,” the company statement continued.
“With flights unable to depart, thousands of guests have been stranded in the Abu Dhabi terminal in check-in areas and at departure gates, while arriving guests faced major delays when their flights were either diverted or delayed for long periods. Other guests were aboard aircraft which were preparing to depart when the airport runway was closed.”
Etihad Airways said Monday morning that it hopes to return to its regular operating patterns by Tuesday.
“#Etihad Airways expects to operate a normal flight schedule by tomorrow (Tuesday 6 January 2015), as operations are restored following the major disruptions caused by severe weather over the weekend,” the company said in its most recent update.
“It is expected that more than 95 per cent of guests delayed by the severe fog, causing the closure of Abu Dhabi International Airport, will have departed #AbuDhabi by tomorrow morning,” Etihad continued in its statement. “Efforts have been helped by guests originally scheduled to travel today and tomorrow (5 and 6 Jan) who took advantage of our offer of free flight changes to shift their travel plans.”
Passengers told reporters in San Francisco that they were more upset about being held on the tarmac for hours than they were about the lengthy flight delay.
“No one was angry about the delay itself. If it’s unsafe to fly, we don’t want to fly,” passenger Ravali Reddy said, according to the AP report.
“It just didn’t seem to make any logical sense why we had to stay on the plane,” Reddy continued.