Post-Tet passengers suffer overloaded trains, delayed flights

One of these passengers was 28-year-old Duong Xuan Thanh, of Binh Dinh Province, who told Tuoi Tre that the bus he rode back to HCMC on February 8 carried as many as 55 people despite its capacity of 28.

The transporting company is VT, which sold tickets for VND800,000 (US$37.7) per passenger travelling on the Binh Dinh-HCMC route during Tet holidays, VND500,000 more than the normal price.

However, many passengers had no official seats on VT company buses and they had to sit on stools arranged by buses’ assistants and on the floor between rows of seats, Thanh said.

On February 10, Tuoi Tre correspondents took a coach with number plate 75B-006.63 from Hue to Da Nang City. The coach is capable of carrying 30 passengers but it was filled with 43, not to mention the driver, his assistants, and a person from the coach firm.

When the coach reached Phu Loc District, Thua Thien-Hue Province, there was a mobile patrol team of traffic police officers present, but they didn’t attempt to examine the coach.

Traffic police in central Quang Nam and Quang Ngai provinces reported that they have detected and handled hundreds of buses carrying excessive numbers of passengers during the past several days.

Sufferers on trains  

On February 7, Tuoi Tre reporters boarded train SE9 from Dong Hoi to Saigon and witnessed how much passengers suffered from crowding on the train.

Passengers were arranged to sit on all lanes between seats in all carriages, so it was very difficult for anybody to pass through the crowds to go to the toilet or the food and drink wagon.

The toilet in carriage No. 5 was out of order, so passengers had to use other toilets in other carriages. Most of the toilets on the train were very unhygienic and stunk.

Many passengers had to eat instant noodles they had brought with them, since they could not accept the poor quality rations sold on the train for VND35,000 ($1.65), which included a few slices of flat pork or a piece of very salty chicken, along with a small amount of tasteless soup.  

Passengers found it very inconvenient to get hot water for their instant noodles, since there was only one hot water supplier in carriage No. 2 that was working.

Such problems caused a lot of troubles, annoyance, and discomfort to passengers on their 1,200 km journey.

Multiple delays

Increased numbers of passengers surpassed the capacity of airports, planes, and infrastructures, and unfavorable weather conditions forced many airlines to change their flight schedules, affecting thousands of passengers over the past several days.

Some flights were delayed up to 10 hours behind schedule.

In speaking with Tuoi Tre, representatives of many airlines, including Vietnam Airlines (VNA), VietJet Air (VJA), and Jetstar pacific (JP) said this is the first year that they have had to delay or cancel so many flights.

Airplane passengers increased 8.3 percent from last year’s Tet, while bad weather conditions affected flights, especially those to and from airports near the sea, such as Vinh Airport in central Nghe An Province or Cat Bi Airport in northern Hai Phong City.

Le Truong Giang, the VNA spokesman, said fog covered many airports in mountainous areas such as Dien Bien, Buon Me Thuot, and Lien Khuong over the past few days, so pilots could not land or take off on schedule.

Lai Xuan Thanh, head of the Vietnam Civil Aviation Administration (VCAA), said that the Transport Ministry has issued a regulation that airline firms are exempt from paying compensation to their passengers if flights are cancelled due to bad weather.

According to VCAA statistics, during the recent Tet holidays, from January 28 to February 5, VNA, VJA, JP and VASCO delayed 304 flights and cancelled 56 flights out of their total of 4,655 flights due to various reasons, including bad weather conditions.