Passengers were delayed by two days after a snowstorm and an issue with their plane earlier this week.
Singapore Airlines Flight 21 was scheduled to take off from Newark last Sunday at 9:35 a.m. The journey to Singapore is the second-longest flight in the world, narrowly shorter than the airline’s route from JFK Airport.
However, airports in and around New York City faced huge disruption due to a snowstorm. Runways had to be temporarily closed for de-icing.
Flight 21 was delayed and postponed to the following day, an airline spokesperson said in a statement shared with Business Insider.
“All 151 customers disembarked the aircraft normally,” they added.
The airline provided them with overnight hotel accommodations and meal vouchers, it added.
Flight 21 was then rescheduled as Flight 9021 and was scheduled to take off around midday on Monday.
However, it was delayed and pushed into the following day for a second time
The airline’s statement cited a fault with the airport’s baggage-handling system, as well as an issue with the Airbus A350’s front landing gear.
A spare part was needed to fix the plane.
One passenger, Avinash Reddy, told Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times that airline staff said a tyre had to be transported from New York’s JFK Airport.
The flight’s passengers were again put up in hotels and given meal vouchers, the airline spokesperson said. They added that some of them were helped to rebook onto alternative flights where possible.
Flight 9021 was then finally able to take off on Tuesday morning, 48 hours later than first planned. It landed in Singapore after just over 18 hours.
“The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority,” the spokesperson said.
