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We thought we had done it; independently travelling around China without any problems. We were so close and then Tigerair happened. Or rather, didn't.
After sitting on the plane for two hours whilst engineers tried to sort out an issue the captain told us that we wouldn't be flying that night. The plane had a fuel leak that could not be fixed quickly. So at 1am a plane full of people had to disembark. We were reassured that ground staff would meet us and tell us what to do.
Of course there were no ground staff waiting for us, so we were all stood around not knowing what to do. After about 15 minutes someone turned up and barked instruction in Mandarin. We had no idea what was going on so just followed everyone else as they took us back through immigration to have our exit stamp cancelled. We were officially back in China! Another announcement followed and someone obviously seeing the bewildered look on our faces, translated for us. We were to go to back to the check in desks and wait there. What for? We had no idea.
We queued up at the check in desk
and waited. Again there was a lot of commotion and more information given, but in Mandarin. At this point we met two people who would help keep us sane over the next 27 hours. A Chinese girl called Suzie who basically acted as our personal translator and Mark, an Aussie guy who was the only other non Mandarin speaking person on our flight.
It sounded like we had two options; jump on a bus with everyone else and go to a hotel for an unspecified amount of time until we were given more information, or get a refund and book an alternative ticket. We were tempted with the second option as it put us back in control of the situation. Thankfully there was wifi at the airport so I looked on Skyscanner for alternative flights. The only half decent flight was with Korean Air via Seoul with a 1 hour and 20 minute layover that departed the following day. I was on the brink of booking it when we decided the layover was tight; would being stuck in Seoul be better or worse than being stuck in China?
In the end we decided to give Tigerair the chance
to come good and jumped on the bus with everyone else. We formulated a new plan after chatting with Mark. We'd been told the Tigerair staff would be in the airport from 8am - so far we'd only spoken to generic airport staff - so we decided to come back to the airport first thing in the morning. The only slight issue was that we literally had 12p to our name. Thankfully Mark was kind enough to offer to pay for the cab, or if his plans changed just give us some money!
We got to the hotel at 3.30am and with two bus loads of people to check in you can imagine the chaos. I'd left my boarding pass on the plane so they took my passport off me, which I was not happy about. Again some lovely person had to translate the reason for them keeping my passport as no one at the hotel spoke English.
We crawled into bed at 4am only to be woken up at 6.30am by hotel staff. They were banging on everyone's door to inform them that breakfast would be served at 8am. Like we cared about that! Again we had
to rely on our next door neighbour, from Singapore, to translate this message!
The next morning we met Mark in the lobby. He'd done some research and found that Tigerair had no flights that day so it was unlikely there would be any staff at the airport. We were wondering whether we should play it safe and wait at the hotel when Suzie came over with an update. Apparently we were going to get more news at 10am. I gave her our room number and asked if she would call as soon as she heard anything as at his point it was fairly clear no one was worrying about the English speaking passengers.
Of course 10am turned into midday which turned into 2pm. Whilst we waited for news we phoned Tigerair in Singapore to explain our situation, but they were zero help and weren't even aware that the flight had been cancelled. Just as we were starting to get frustrated Suzie came to the room with an update. Tigerair were flying a new plane up from Singapore and it would depart at 11.30 that night, so 24 hours after our original flight.
We'd hoped we'd get out
sooner, but at least we knew what was going on and could start rearranging our first few days in Bali / Lombok. We had a one night layover in Sanur, then a boat transfer to the Gili Islands that all needed to be pushed back one day. It looked like the original 7 nights we had planned in the Gilis would be reduced to 5 nights, thanks to Tiger Air rescheduling our original flight (when we first booked the tickets we were supposed to fly at 8am not 11.30pm!) and then delaying the new flight by 24 hours!
Knowing we had a few more hours in the hotel Paul went to reception to get some more water (armed with Google translate of course). The 'conversation' didn't go well. The receptionist disappeared out the back and returned with half a watermelon!!!! Hilarious! Paul was left wondering what had gone so badly wrong with the translation but the main question he had was why would any reception have water melon to hand???!!!! Only in China!
At 8pm we were sat on the bus as planned joking about how, in a week, we would look back on everything and laugh. We
had a hopeful 30 minutes before the bus suddenly did a U- turn. Was the driver lost? Where we going back to the hotel for some missing passengers? Unfortunately not, we were going back to the hotel because our flight wasn't going to leave that evening after all.
Gutted does not even come close to how we felt. We were kicking ourselves for not going with the Korean Air flights - we'd be well on our way to Bali by now.
It was bedlam back at the hotel. There were a lot of very angry people and the poor person who came to deliver news on what was happening was less than popular. Apparently the plane was still in Singapore (6 hours away) because Chinese airspace (which belongs to the Chinese military) had not signed off the paperwork to allow it to land. That raised the question of why we'd all been shipped off to the airport if the plane hadn't even left Singapore. People were not buying the explanation. Then someone else from the airport arrived to calm everyone down and gave a conflicting message that the plan was to fix the original aircraft. There was uproar.
At this point we decided to bite the bullet and booked the Korean Air flights for the following day. The way things were going we could find ourselves in China in a weeks time! Feeling relieved that we were back in control we left the hotel in search of food. The car park was still packed full of people from our flight, demanding to be taken to the airport so they could get truthful updates. It had gotten bad enough that the police had been called!
By the time we returned an hour later there was more news. Apparently the flight was going to leave at 4am and the replacement plane was on its way up from Singapore. We didn't know what to believe, was this another lie from the airline? We decided to stick to the Korean Air plan, so went back to the room and phoned Tigerair to sort out a refund. Unfortunately this was not an easy task. After 1.5 hours and being cut off twice I finally managed to convince them that we were entitled to a refund because they had cancelled the flight. The call centre staff were telling me to talk to the ground staff, but the ground staff has told me to speak to the call centre and even given us a letter explaining that we could get a refund. Madness.
By this point it was 12.30 and the bus was leaving at 1am for the Tigerair flight. We decided we weren't going to get any sleep in the hotel and so at the last second decided not to get the refund and edge our bets. Surely with two flights booked we would make it to Bali in the next 24 hours.
So we found ourselves on the bus again, on the way to the airport. This time the bus made it all the way. We waiting until everyone had checked in and then it was decision time; do we trust that Tigerair will get us to Singapore in time to catch our connection to Bali? Or did we go with Korean Airlines and risk a 1 hour 20 minute connection? We figured it was better to get stuck in Singapore than Korea; it is much closer to Bali and there would be more flight options if things went wrong. So we took the plunge and checked in.
At 3.30am there was still no sign of the plane from Singapore and we were thinking we'd made a bad decision. Then at 3.45 we saw a plane land. Everyone was got up from their seats to check it was our flight - it had to be given we were the only passengers in the entire airport.
We finally left China at 5am, 30 hours late. The only silver lining was the plane was pretty empty, we're guessing some people had made alternative arrangements or simply cancelled, so we both got a seat of 3 to ourselves and could sleep.
During our five hour layover in Singapore, Paul called Korean Air to let them know we wouldn't be on the flight that left China in two hours. We didn't think we had a glimmer of hope of a refund, so were shocked when they told us we'd get £500 back of the £660 we'd spent on the flights. Amazing! And much better than Tigerair who so far have given us a £5 food voucher despite the disgraceful delay and terrible customer service.
As we touched down in Bali all I could think was thank god we've made it out of China. Such a terrible end to what has been a fantastic three weeks. And we can't even blame it on a Chinese airline. Tigerair are based in Singapore and frankly should know better!
We are now safely on the Gili Islands; two days later than planned but we're finding that sunshine, sand and cocktails are a great healer! And we have yet another travelling pub tale to add to the list!
***You know the score, please scroll down for some pictures***
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Mum M
non-member comment
Hi
Oh goodness, what a nightmare! Glad you made it out of China eventually! How very frustrating. Glad you got most of your money back from your duplicate flight.Hope you are having some well earned R and R! We are off to Santorini on Tuesday.. Chris was delighted with his surprise present. Hope it is a more straightforward journey than yours! But we are travelling Thomas Cook so fingers crossed!! Enjoy Indonesia and take care of yourselves. Have fun! Mx