[B]Never fly china eastern and never transit Kunming airport.[/B]

Vide Pnr : NWF722 & MHMX7K

1. CHATTERJEE/ASITKUMARMR
2. CHATTERJEE/SAMITAMRS
3. CHATTERJEE/TAPATIMS
4. CHATTERJEE/TANDRANIMS
5. CHATTERJEE/TANMOYMR
6. CHATTERJEE/LABANYAMRS
7. SEN/JAYASREEMRS
8. SEN/SYAMALSENMR

The flight from Kolkata delayed by nearly 1 hr.

The flight consequently arrived Kunming late. The Kunming airport immigration and customs area was extremely crowded and passengers of the group was scattered. Some people were able to clear immigrations earlier than others. We found that there were some China Eastern Staff who were at the immigration area and taking out some elderly passengers, families with children and their supposed partners and associates who seemed to be of Chinese origin, out of the queue and getting their immigration done out of turn. They begged and pleaded that they have a connecting flight to catch and to help us but they rudely waived us away saying “queue queue”. They were completely aghast. Repeatedly they tried to seek help without luck. The most glaring incident took place when the passengers had reached the immigration counter and were presently their passports. The China Eastern representative brought in few passengers of Chinese Origin, spoke to the immigration in local language and had the immigration of this passengers done before them.

At Kunming airport there is common check in for all flights and passengers queued up wherever they saw relatively lesser people. Here again one of the passenger tried to leave the queue and request the counter to accept them as they had the connecting flight to take but the staff waived them away after ignoring them for considerable amount of time. They did not at all speak any English.

26 passengers were accepted on the flight in total. 12 passengers were not accepted on the flight though they were very much in the queue on the plea that the flight was full and closed. The passengers who could not travel were in the queue by 0700 hrs Kunming time. In fact it is at this time that one of the passengers left the queue and spoke to the China Eastern Staff but to no avail.

After much cajoling, 3 passengers were accepted on a later flight. The balance 8 passengers alongwith the tour leader were stranded. No amount of cajoling, appealing was of any help as the staff feined not to understand English. It ios understood from these 3 passengers that there were vacant seats on the flight.

That there was a group of 38 passengers in 2 co-related PNRs was brought to the attention of China Eastern Staff by tour leader and passengers and that they were in transit etc. but was completely ignored by the local China Eastern Staff. The China Eastern staff told the tour leader that necessary facilitaton message was being sent to Kunming airport China eastern office but it transpires now that either no message was sent or ignored by Kunming staff.

Finally, China Eastern were unable to offer any airspace even to Beijing to take the group. though we requested that the passenger be rerouted over an intermediate point to the next destination Beijing on involuntary basis as per IATA rules and we specifically mentioned that air space were available.

The passengers had a harrowing experience at Kunming airport. Finally seeing no other option, the passengers had to be flown back to Kolkata the same night.

The passengers have also bitterly complained of discrimination by China Eastern and Chinese immigration. The passengers have also complained of inhuman conditions at Kunming Airport without a single seat, no food, no water, no telephone facility and the toilets which even animals would avoid.
Women were urinating at the ladies toilet standing !!

Your airline even said that for this flight back, we would have to pay Rs.1500 per passenger as rerouting charge.

China eastern sent a chineze looking person to our office alongwith a staff of Inter Globe . the person came in a T shirt n slippers , had not even a visiting card and neither spoke nor understood English !

China Eastern replied to the complain after a lapse of 2 months stating passengers were no show on the connecting flight !! that they delayed reporting at the check in counter which ofcourse is a blatant lie .
Any one who has been to Kunming airport will testify that it is no place for siteseeing or loitering around and any passenger in transit would like to get out of it as quickly as possible.

Club7 Holidays ltd will now file a suit in the appropriate court of law and the aggrieved passengers will be filing a suit in the Consumer Forum for redressal.

Club7 holidays
Kolkata