Grounded China Eastern Airlines plane finally takes flight

More than 70 passengers stranded at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) since Sunday afternoon finally got off the ground. The long-stuck China Eastern Airlines Airbus A340 bid the tarmac farewell and headed for Shanghai at 10:54 p.m. Tuesday night.

Airline officials had kept the plane grounded due to problems with its landing gear, which crews “worked through the night to fix.” The subsequent unfolding of events, as explained by Ari B. Bloomekatz and Raja Abdulrahim in the Los Angeles Times blog L.A. Now:

Passengers returned Monday, but the same problems arose when the plane began to taxi, according to officials with China Eastern Airlines in Los Angeles.

Some of the passengers on Monday staged a mini sit-in at the ticket counter after they were told to disembark for a second time. Airport police were called, but there were no arrests.

The stranded passengers were put up in a hotel and given meals by the airline, but there were complications in giving full refunds because many of the tickets were sold through agents who added their own markups, according to officials with the airline.

Passengers had the option of getting a refund on a one-way fare, buying their own tickets to China on another airline or waiting until the problem was resolved.

The flight was reportedly scheduled to land soon (in a couple hours) after the L.A. Now piece, which was posted at 10:19 a.m. I was unable to reach a China Eastern Airlines official to confirm the plane had touched down.

- Susan Derby, Special to the Los Angeles Times

[Image: China Eastern Airlines]

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 1:13 pm by Susan Derby and is filed under Airline travel, California, Frequent Flier, Los Angeles, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.