Scoot apologises for KL-bound flight that left 90mins earlier than scheduled
Budget carrier Scoot has apologised after one of its flights took off from Changi Airport about 1½ hours earlier than scheduled on Nov 1.
Scoot flight TR456 was originally scheduled to depart from Singapore for Kuala Lumpur at 4.50am.
But the flight was retimed and departed earlier at 3.21am due to “operational reasons”, Scoot said in response to queries from The Straits Times.
The budget airline did not provide details on how many passengers were affected, and whether it had informed passengers about the retimed flight well ahead of departure time.
It added that affected passengers were placed on Singapore Airlines flight SQ104, which left for KL at 7.04am on the same day.
“We sincerely apologise to all affected customers for the disruption and inconvenience caused,” Scoot said.
At least one TR456 passenger was left behind, according to a Stomp report.
“I constantly checked the departure time using the SG Flight Info app. It remained at 4.50am,” he said, referring to an app that allows users to track the flights taking off from Changi Airport.
He told Stomp that when he arrived at the empty departure gate, he “panicked” and had to “run to the nearest departure gate that was open” to seek help.
He was then directed by a staff member from Terminal 1 to a counter at Terminal 3.
“The Scoot ground worker apologised to us and said he did not know how it happened. He took down our names, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses and told us Scoot would compensate us with $150,” the passenger said.
Although he managed to get to KL by SQ104, which took off more than two hours after his original departure time, he was not able to catch his subsequent connecting flights, and had to buy three additional tickets to continue with his journey.
Scoot told ST its customer service team has contacted the passenger, and has “assisted him accordingly”.
Another Scoot flight which left about 4 hours earlier than scheduled in 2023 also left some passengers unhappy.
On Jan 18, 2023, 29 people missed their Singapore-bound Scoot flight TR509 from Amritsar, India, as their travel agent did not inform them about the change, according to an airport official.
Scoot had said then that it had informed passengers about the change on Jan 15 that year through e-mail or SMS, based on the contact details provided.
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now