Budget airline Air Australia has been placed into administration, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Photo / Thinkstock
Budget airline Air Australia has been placed into administration, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded. Photo / Thinkstock
Hundreds of Australian tourists have had to pay an extra NZ$600 to fly home from Thailand after being stranded by the collapse of Air Australia.
Passengers, who had already processed through immigration, were forced to leave the airport in the early hours of Friday morning after flight VC 241 wascancelled.
On Friday 300 passengers hoping to get on a flight arrived at the airport.
Amy Simpson, 24, a psychiatric nurse from Werribee, near Melbourne, and Chloe Cox-Haines, 23, a student from the Gold Coast, managed to get onto a flight to Singapore.
"It was absolute chaos last night," Simpson told the Phuketwan newswire.
"The (Air Australia) plane was due out at 7.30pm. We we were told about 6.30pm it would be delayed until 8pm due to minor difficulties.
"Every hour or so there were further delays. Eventually, close to midnight, we were told we would not be flying. Everyone then had to be reprocessed back through immigration."
The women found accommodation but said "lots of others are still struggling".
"There was nobody from Air Australia at the airport last night, and the Thais didn't know what to tell us. All we were given was a free bottle of soft drink," she said.
Other stranded passengers spoke of upset families and concerns their travel insurance would not cover the additional cost to fly back to Australia.
Larry Cunningham, Australian honorary consul for Phuket, said the anger among the passengers had dissipated on Friday.
"The mood is good. They're behaving very well. Helping people, older people."
