SFO nightmare -- 400 stuck on plane 7 hours

airline_012.JPG Mark Valenta and his wife Noy were supposed to start their honeymoon, but were stuck at the airport trying to sort things out with Cathay Pacific Tuesday evening. A Cathay Pacific airline flight to Thailand from SFO due to leave early Tuesday morning was delayed more than 7 hours with passengers being stuck on the plane. They got no explanation why the flight was delayed and then never took off. Tuesday evening they were still searching for answers at the International terminal at SFO. {Brant Ward/San Francisco Chronicle}6/19/07 less airline_012.JPG Mark Valenta and his wife Noy were supposed to start their honeymoon, but were stuck at the airport trying to sort things out with Cathay Pacific Tuesday evening. A Cathay Pacific airline ... more Photo: Brant Ward Photo: Brant Ward Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close SFO nightmare -- 400 stuck on plane 7 hours 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

Nearly 400 passengers were stranded aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways jet for more than seven hours Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport, adding yet another planeload of angry consumers to a growing industry backlash.

Passengers boarded Flight CX873 to Hong Kong just after midnight Tuesday for a 1:20 a.m. departure. But the Boeing 747 never left the gate.

"We sat there three hours before they said anything," said Mark Valenta, a newlywed for whom the flight was to have been the start of a dream honeymoon to Asia. "Then the PA system went down, the lights were going on and off, babies were crying. It was a nightmare."

And it lasted the entire night.

It wasn't until 7:30 a.m. that the flight finally was canceled due to equipment problems and passengers disembarked.

Airline officials and the passengers told markedly different accounts of how the hours were passed.

The passengers, for instance, said they weren't offered food or refreshments, except perhaps in business class, and they complained that they were not regularly informed about the cause or expected length of the delay.

The airline, in a written statement, described the evening as something akin to a well-stocked slumber party while the crew scurried to find a part to fix a mechanical problem.

"While still on board, our cabin crew worked to ensure the comfort of passengers providing snacks, beverage refreshments and a hot meal. Many passengers were asleep on board as we provided refreshments and updates on the delay," the airline said.

Airlines have been struggling to keep consumers from open rebellion against extended airport delays and diverted flights.

A consumer group has been started by a Napa real estate broker, Kate Hanni, who was trapped on an airplane with her husband while trying to reach Alabama and has been pushing Congress to force airlines to take better care of stranded passengers. Hanni said she keeps getting caught at more airports while flying to New York or Washington, D.C., as head of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights.

The group's hot line -- (877) 359-3776 -- lit up with the latest outrage at SFO starting Tuesday morning.

Passengers said they were upset not so much because they were stuck in their seats but by a pronounced lack of concern communicated by the airline.

"It's like the lights are on but nobody's home," Valenta said.

The 35-year-old corporate communications writer for a software company was married Sunday at Fort Mason to Noy Phengrasamy, 33, an environmental health and safety manager. The couple planned to honeymoon in Asia.

Instead, they found themselves cozying up with 379 other Cathay Pacific passengers in a marooned cabin, where the mood in the wee hours was anything but romantic.

"They finally said there was some kind of technical issue, but they were not sure what it was, and were trying to resolve it," Valenta said. "But the pilot was so nonchalant about it. There were no snacks, no drinks, nothing."

While stuck on board, the passengers were free to use the restrooms and the flight crew was polite and apologetic, but otherwise there were few attempts by airline staff to make for a reasonably pleasant wait, passengers said.

They didn't even get to watch a movie.

Eventually, passengers were given the option of exiting about 4 a.m. for juice in the terminal, he said, and about 50 people got off at that point.

The crew finally did tell passengers there was a problem with a hydraulic pump and said a spare had to be flown in from the East Coast.

But it wasn't until 7:30 a.m. -- more than seven hours after passengers had boarded -- that the airline finally announced the flight was scrapped.

When they finally disem- barked, the scene was pandemonium, with no airline staff there to direct passengers or indicate how or when their flight would be rebooked, passengers said.

"The real problem was the chaotic customer service," said passenger Aron Starratt, 49, a Silicon Valley building contractor. "Nobody knows what's going on."

Eventually, the passengers were given vouchers for free hotel rooms and invited to return Tuesday night for the next flight.

Starratt and the other passengers spoke Tuesday afternoon as they stood before an empty bank of Cathay Pacific check-in counters at the San Francisco airport, having just spent the day in a Burlingame hotel awaiting another flight to Hong Kong.

Valenta and Phengrasamy had planned to spend four days in Thailand before visiting Phengrasamy's native Laos at the outset of a 2 1/2-week tour of Southeast Asia. The Thailand part of the trip was down to two days because of the delay, Valenta said. But that was before he found out their Tuesday night flight also had been delayed by at least an hour and a half.

Most of the passengers found out about the departure delay only by checking monitors.

After one Cathay Pacific staff person appeared behind an airline counter, he declined to talk on the record and directed annoyed customers back to the main check-in line.

"I've been flying Cathay for 15 years," said another stranded passenger, Maria Yee, 44, a businesswoman based in Manila. "They are really a very, very efficient airline. Nothing like this has happened to me ever."

That was little comfort for the newlyweds, who found themselves worrying about missed connections, paid-for hotel nights and lost quality time on a Thai beach as they waited at the head of a snaking line of anxious travelers.

They kept smiling though, and sounded philosophical. They credited the airline for keeping safety foremost.

"In the grand scheme of things, we're going to get on our honeymoon later than we would have liked. That sucks, but as long as we get there safely, that's important too," Valenta said.

It would take more than a mere airport delay to kill the honeymoon spirit.

"It's not going to take any sizzle out of it," Valenta said.

Online Resources

For more information about the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, go to the coalition's website at:

links.sfgate.com/ZID