A Singapore Airlines (SIA) passenger has claimed that she and fellow customers were ‘trapped’ in an aircraft’s cabin for eight hours at Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) in China.  

According to the passenger, who was sharing her experience on Facebook, Flight SQ833 was due to take off at 4.45pm on Wednesday, September 6, 2023, but by midnight everyone was still stuck on the plane.  

“We have been trapped in cabin for 8 hours in Pu Dong Airport. The captain refused to let us out of the plane. There is no air conditioning and not enough air circulation. They put all passengers’ lives in danger,” the passenger wrote.  

In a statement provided by SIA to Channel News Asia (CNA), the airline apologized for the issues that the passengers experienced. 

“Sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to customers by the flight cancellation of SQ833 on Sep 6, 2023,” a spokesperson for the airline said. 

SIA added that the Airbus A380 “encountered technical issues when the aircraft was still on the ground”.   

The passenger shared a video from the cabin of the A380 showing people standing up and trying to cool themselves down with makeshift fans.  

In a later Facebook post, the passenger wrote: “It was a plane technical issue. So, they turned off the engine twice for a total of more than 2 hours. And locked everyone in the cabin 8 hours while they tried to fix the issue. It’s a 100% SQ disaster!” 

According to CNA, the passenger said that the air conditioning was turned off for over an hour. SIA claimed that “for safety reasons, the ground power had to be disabled while the checks were going on”.  

Passengers were provided with refreshments, but some required oxygen masks because they were feeling out of breath. 

According to SIA, passengers finally left the aircraft at 12.30 am on September 7, 2023, and were rebooked onto other flights.