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US airline offers refunds to passengers stuck on tarmac overnight
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-08-11 15:26

HOUSTON: US Continental Airlines on Monday apologized to 47 passengers who were trapped on the tarmac for six hours when a Houston-to-Minneapolis flight was diverted because of bad weather, and offered refunds and vouchers to the passengers.

In a statement issued on Monday, the Houston-based Continental apologized to passengers stuck in a plane at the Rochester airport, Minnesota, and called the situation "completely unacceptable." The company also offered passengers a refund and voucher for later travel.

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The plane took off from Houston, Texas about 9:30 Friday night and was scheduled to land at Twin Cities, Minnesota just after midnight. But flight was diverted to Rochester airport because of stormy weather and didn't get in to Twin Cities until 11 am Saturday, local media said.

The flight landed in Rochester about midnight and passengers weren't allowed to leave the plane until 6 am Saturday, according to local media reports.

The airline could not allow passengers to disembark because the airport's security screeners had gone home for the night, said Kristy Nicholas, spokeswoman for ExpressJet Airlines, the flight's operator.

However, officials at the airport said that it was Continental's decision to keep passengers on the plane, and this "wasn't an airport issue."

Passengers complained about their "nightmare" in the grounded plane, where they did not get any food throughout the night and the only bathroom was overflowed and smelly.

"This was a sardine can, with a single row of seats on one side of the plane and two rows of seats on the other. And they've got about 50 people inside, including babies, for the whole night. It was a nightmare," Link Christin, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, told the Star Tribune newspaper.