Trapped Between Two Superpowers – On a Filthy Plane

This is part of our Travel Writing and Reflection series.

Muz: In 2017 you had to get to Nepal for our Everest Base Camp trek. What airline did you choose and why? 

Dan: I chose China Southern Airlines, a purely economic choice. I flew Melbourne to Guangzhou (southern China) and on to Kathmandu. Melbourne to Guangzhou is about ten hours and it was a pretty normal flight. The second leg was where things started to get interesting.

When we were over Kathmandu about 8pm after a five-hour flight there was a massive thunderstorm. There was just no way that the plane was going to land. The pilots thought the storm was going to clear and they were going to be able to land so, we circled for a very long time – about four hours.

Unauthorised Landing in India

Dan: After four hours of circling, the pilots genuinely believed we could land. We had one or two missed approaches, but then got a low fuel warning and were forced to divert to another location as they were about to start tapping into fuel reserves.

We diverted about an hour or 400km to Lucknow in northern India. It is not a usual direct flight and we landed around one in the morning. We didn’t know this at the time, but learned after landing that Lucknow Airport was closed. It closes at midnight. And we had no landing clearance because they hadn’t been able to get in touch with anyone on the ground.

We landed and the pilots came on the PA and said we’re going to be here until they refuel us tomorrow morning and then we’ll head on out when the airport opens about six in the morning.

The Waiting Begins

Dan: We settled in for five hours of sitting around and doing nothing. It was one of these old planes, and they only loaded one Chinese language movie onto the flight. It wasn’t particularly good, and I’d already watched it, but they played it on repeat a couple more times.

About 5.30 in the morning the airport was starting to come to life. The pilots came back on the PA and said, “India is really upset that we’ve landed without authority. They’re not refueling us right now and they’re not really sure what to do with us.”

About 8am the pilots came back on the PA again and said, “They’ve agreed to refuel us but there’s no takeoff slots coming for the next few hours.”

Sometimes Airline Travel Stinks

Dan: Now it’s probably worth talking a bit about how it was in the plane. India did not grant us permission to go into the terminal. They did not even allow the crew to open the doors to get some fresh air into the plane. They were unwilling to resupply any food or water or to clear the sewage from the plane.

With every hour the plane was just getting into a worse and worse state. Because this was only going to be a five-hour flight there was little food. In the early hours we ran out of food and water.

Once we’d run out of water, people started dipping into the soft drinks and then we ran out of soft drink. The only thing left on the plane was alcohol. There was really nothing that the flight attendants could do. They were just coming along the aisles seeing if everyone was okay but really none of us were.

Muz: I suppose there was no way to pass the time?

Dan: We all got to know each other pretty well. There were a few people who were going to climb Mount Everest. Others, like me, were doing Everest base camp.

Remember the movie they’d loaded onto the flight? They played it on repeat over and over again, maybe eight or nine times. It’s actually kind of funny that I can’t remember the movie because I must have watched it so many times.

Muz: I suppose boredom was not the worst problem.

Dan: Compounding the situation was the toilets. By mid-morning, they could no longer clear the waste. It was absolutely rank. It was horrible. The smell pervaded the whole airplane and the flight attendants stopped people from using the bathrooms. They collected water bottles from the trash cans. People urinated into the bottles which were thrown back into the trash cans.

Muz: How did people get around the privacy issues for that?

Dan: They did it in the toilets. It’s not easy to urinate into a water bottle if you’re a guy and even harder if you’re a girl. It was a mess.

Muz: How were the flight attendants?

Dan: It was actually quite sad for the flight attendants. We learned they do not get paid when the plane is on the ground. They were very upset not only because their plane was in a horrible state that they were going to have to clean once they got back to Kathmandu but also because they hadn’t been paid for the previous 12 hours while they were stuck in the same situation as us.

Take Off at Last

Muz: How was it resolved? When did you get away?

Dan: We were refueled early in the morning, then it was just a waiting game. We flew out at about 2pm after being on the ground over 12 hours. There were one or two times where we had a take-off slot but we didn’t have a landing slot in Kathmandu. There were great cheers when we got off the ground and even greater cheers when we landed an hour later in Kathmandu.

Muz: I understand it was not possible to disembark before the airport opened but surely the discomfort and deprivation was avoidable?

Dan: It seems to me very callous that the Indian government allowed all these people to endure this. There would have been an entry hall where at least we could have rested, had water, had bathrooms and waited as patiently as we could.

Muz: It does seem unusually callous.

Dan: I think it was to do with tension between China and India at the time. It was unfortunate we were on a Chinese airline and not an airline from a country with better relations with India.

Muz: Did the airline offer any consolation?

Dan: No, but they thanked us for flying with China Southern and let us exit the plane. The consolation was exiting the plane in Kathmandu.

In all likelihood, this issue was a result of the Doklam Standoff, a tense military face-off on a remote plateau in the Himalayas. For months, the two superpowers were at a diplomatic breaking point. To the Indian authorities on the ground, a Chinese-flagged aircraft landing without clearance wasn’t just a flight diversion; it was a political problem they weren’t in a hurry to solve. Read about it here.

Arriving in Kathmandu

Dan: I had missed the shuttle so had to get a taxi into a city I had never been to before. Another adventure! But I got to the hotel and was just happy to be there. But you had gone out I think for dinner so I didn’t see you.

I was so hungry I did something you should never do in a foreign country, especially during the first hours. I ate street food. Samosas and curry, it must have cost about 50c for the whole meal. I could have been rotten sick for the next week but it worked out well and I remember it being very tasty.

Muz: I was relieved see your bags on return to the room as I had not been able to get any information about your whereabouts. Anything else you want to say about this misadventure?

Dan: We had a couple of days to prepare for the trek and … Well then, yeah, then the next flight?

Muz: Katmandu to Lukla?

Dan: That was pretty entertaining.

Muz: How about you share your memories of that next time we chat?

TO BE CONTINUED