Passengers tell of exodus from Bangkok

3 Dec 2008, 1:52 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Almost 300 passengers have arrived in Melbourne after finally flying out of Thailand where mass protests had crippled Bangkok's main airports.

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Almost 300 passengers have arrived in Melbourne after finally flying out of Thailand where mass protests had crippled Bangkok's main airports.
 
A Jetstar flight landed just before lunchtime today with hundreds of tired but relieved Australians and other international travellers.

Many told of enduring a cramped 12-hour bus ride from Bangkok to Phuket, where they were finally able to get on a plane.

Jannene Harker, of Rockhampton in Queensland, said she had been stuck in Thailand for six days before boarding the overnight Jetstar flight.

Ms Harker said she had originally flown into Thailand from the Indian capital New Delhi and was expecting to be in transit for only a few hours.

"When we left New Delhi the international airport at Bangkok had just closed and we had to land at the domestic airport," she said. 

"I was meant to be in transit at the international airport for five hours but in the end stayed there for six days."

Irish tourist Samantha Lee Doyle said she had no option but to board a cramped mini-bus for a 30-hour journey from Bangkok to the Malaysia capital Kuala Lumpur to avoid the protest action.

"It's horrible, there are no options, the buses were really loaded up. There were only mini-buses and they were all packed full of people," Ms Doyle, 27, said.

"They're ripping everyone off on the basis that there are no flights."

Demonstrators with the People's Alliance for Democracy overran Bangkok's main airports a week ago in a bid to oust the government, leaving 300,000 travellers stranded.

Thailand's Constitutional Court moved to end the crisis on Tuesday when it dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud in the 2007 vote that brought them to power.

The ruling ousted Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, and banned him from politics for five years.

Protest leaders said the airport seizures would end on Wednesday.

Officials in charge of Thailand's airports said the main Suvarnabhumi international airport would resume operations on Friday.
 
 

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