When passengers boarded Cathay Pacific flight 883 from Los Angeles to Hong Kong on 4 August, they knew it was a long flight averaging 13.5 hours. What they didn’t know is that they would end up spending more than twice that amount of time onboard the aircraft before the journey was over.
Black warning
CX883 departed Los Angeles at 07:55 UTC on 4 August, making its way west across the Pacific for 13 hours before beginning its approach to Hong Kong. By the time the aircraft was near Hong Kong, the city was under a Black warning, meaning more than 70 mm of rain is expected to fall each hour.
The flight held near Hong Kong and then diverted to Taipei to wait out the weather. CX883 landed in Taipei 15 hours 33 minutes after departing Los Angeles.
Now, we wait
To this point, there is nothing unusual about the flight, as weather diversions happen on a regular basis and Taipei is often used by Cathay when landing in Hong Kong is not possible.
What makes this story unusual is that the passengers of CX883 were kept on the aircraft at a remote stand and not allowed to disembark. The aircraft parked at the remote stand on the north side of the airfield at 23:32 UTC. At some point, the plane was moved to a different remote stand on the south side of the airfield. The airline has not publicly confirmed why passengers were kept on the aircraft.
Finally time to go
The weather in Hong Kong finally cleared and a relief crew operated the flight back to Hong Kong, departing Taipei at 10:00 UTC the following day after ten and a half hours on the ground.
The flight to Hong Kong this time was without incident and the aircraft touched down at 11:27 UTC, nearly 28 hours after departing Los Angeles.
41 Responses
Schweinerei die sollten die Leute in das gate bringen bei kaffee und was zu trinken und zu essen das zeigt wie traurig und peinlich das ist Schande
The old axiom is confirmed: Aviation is the fastest way to be late, no matter where you’re heading for…
Similar event happened to me on a CX flight from LAX to Hong Kong. When we were minutes from landing, I was horrified to watch on the screen that the plane was turning away from the airport. Then came the captain saying the weather in Hong Kong was bad and we were running low of fuel. We could not wait out the weather and had to fly to Kaoshiung, the southern most airport of Taiwan. We landed, refilled and drinks loaded. As we were prepared to leave, another announcement. Because the diversion caused the crews to exceed their allowable time, they need a fresh crew to arrive before we could fly again. We were sent into the terminal where Cathay had no service (Kaoshiung was not a regular serviced city for CX). The terminal was bare. No restaurant, no shops. There was no communication from CX crews because they all disappeared. Someone brought some sandwiches and drinks. We waited from morning to late afternoon when another CX plane brought a team. An early morning arrival turned into a late afternoon arrival.
Cathay Pacific have no control over natural disasters at least passengers reached their destination safe without any mishaps. I have used CX many times it’s one of the best airline. Crews are always ready to serve passengers needs they are polite friendly n knowledgeable. Never use airlines like Air India Indian airlines and Saudi Arabian Emrates they are very discriminative disgusting n disrespectful I would never use these airlines
They can’t control the weather, but they do have control over the treatment of passengers while waiting out the weather.
The main story and Patrick’s story show a complete lack of respect for passengers by this airline.
i flew into Taipei on my way to Seoul. My government passport was confiscated and i had to remain in a holding area that had some wooden benches until my flight left. it was interesting to say the least
Obviously, something like this could happen again at any time—and therefore the public has a right to know why the passengers weren’t allowed to disembark in Taipei! This here is intolerable!
I had this experience fue years ago, the main issue for disembark is customs, there’s no flexibility with customs in many countries to provide access to the country. IATA should make fa formal request to solve this very stressful incident for passengers.
What happend to the airplane
I fiill sorry for passengers and crew together with family waiting for them in
Hong Hong knowing that no compsation is expected to to natural causes(wearher) nothing does to thr airline
This is insane. Why on earth would they not be able to leave the plane for 10 hours?! When I hear about situations where passengers are kept on a plane for hours on end, I wonder what the reason could be? Visa, passport, security issues? Why not just let passengers off the plane and taken to the waiting hall if it can’t dock and let passengers off? Is it bad decision making from incompetence or what? It’s just mind boggling.
Airline “yield management” run amok.
Regulators should not allow airlines to treat passengers as “load” (cargo, cattle.)
No reasonable person would make decisions to treat other people in this way.
This goes back to the Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment psychology of the prison guard that separates people from their sense of empathy and fairness.
Each of these “business” decisions rationalized by “security” or “efficiency” or “safety” – the words that explain away authoritarianism – should be taken by ethicists and subject to scrutiny by regulators.
It’s simple: “if you were sitting in that 31 inch by 17 inch seat space for an hour, would you agree every hour to continue sitting or would you disembark, get a free hotel room for 12 hours and be assured the airline would use its formidable logistics to meet the terms and conditions of ticket sales”?
It’s not a matter of later paying some token remedy of a voucher or a reimbursement – that just perpetuates the cost-centric business processes that regulators permit in order for corporations to treat people like cattle.
The worst I had was a 7 hour AA trip to nowhere departing/arriving DFW many years ago. Blizzard conditions, we pushed back, de-iced, and got in a line of a million aircraft circumnavigating the airport on our way towards a departure runway. We ground to a halt and sat. And sat. And sat. Of course, now we need to be de-iced again, but there’s no way to escape the queue. And we need fuel. But we can’t go to a gate because the pilots would go illegal due to hours worked. Eventually everyone gave up but it was seven hours when we finally deplaned. They had of course already given away every hotel room in Dallas, so it was spending the night on the terminal floor. BUT I had used AA stickers to upgrade to first-class, so yay! At one point the pilot came back to first and told us passengers on other planes were threatening to mutiny and throw open the doors and blow the slides and walk back to the terminal.
Just curious if Cathay and/or the Taipei airport authority ever gave reason for holding the passengers on the plane that long. Having flown that route from LAX on Cathay myself before, it’s a challenging journey when on time as I can’t imagine how irritated everyone (crew included) must have been!
It’s exceedingly difficult to imagine, but back in the ‘Good Old Days’, we ‘hijacked’ a group of passengers flying London to Hong Kong for four and a half days. It was 26th. August 1978 when there was a shortage of spare P & W JT9 engines, and G-AWNB a BOAC 747-100 turned up in Calcutta with several engine problems during a monsoon which had flooded downtown Calcutta. Following several attempts to start #3 engine, and failing, we gave up trying and returned to the ‘Grand Hotel’ finally arriving via planks of timber standing end to end on to 50 gallon oil drums, from the transport coach directly into reception. The passengers were distributed around numerous hotels with about 50 of them staying with us in the Grand, which, of course, wasn’t. After a couple of days, we had to avoid these unfortunate folk to avoid friendly confrontation.
For several days we tried to fly to HKG but no matter what we tried, NB the bxxxxxd, refused to cooperate. Eventually a replacement engine was flown in using a 5-engine ferry flight, also carrying passengers into Calcutta. These were the days when we spent hours flying on either 3 or 5 engines, with apocryphal stories of pilots attending simulator sessions to practice 4 engine landings. Many extraordinary ‘adventures’ occured during the 4 days the passengers and crew were trapped in CCU, with at least 3 visits and failures, to and from the airport. Calcutta airport, Dum Dum, was aptly named after the bullet which was designed there.
On 30th. August we finally flew CCU – BKK – HKG, they certainly were exciting and adventurous days, but not all of them days which I wished to repeat.
I feel for those passengers on the Cathay Pacific to Hong Kong who were diverted to Taipei and were held on the plane all that time without any explanation? Did the people of Taipei think that the passenger’s were some sort of threat to them ,!! .
I don’t really know but maybe when you go to that area of the World that’s their way of thinking 🤔.
This is a normal sécurity measure to fly to Taipei and wait for a weather clearance to fly back to HKG.
Regarding the Passegers kept inboard during the stopover in Taipei the answer is only political to my opinion: Formose vs China
That’s horrible, isn’t any law or safety regulation for the passengers? I think is not safe to spend more that 24 hours in a plane.
Anything re food and water for the additional time? Restrooms stayed in good working condition? Cabin crew also changed?
Very strange. Maybe a place to avoid in the future until their problems may have been resolved.
So the crew changed but passengers could not even go to a transit lounge, that not humane!
In 1991 I sat in the same seat for 28.5 hours on a BA 747 from JNB to LHR via NBO. Due to a Nairobi storm that closed the airport we diverted to Mombasa, only just landing as the storm chased us across Kenya. A KLM 747 had landed just before and its pax occupied the small terminal, leaving BA pax to sit on the aircraft for the best part of 8 hours. Next morning, with NBO now open, a relief BA flew NBO to Mombasa on Kenya Airways and then flew our 747 back to NBO, to let JNB-NBO pax off the aircraft and NBO-LHR pax embark. Another 2 hours on the deck before taking off for LHR. My flight log records that we were in the air for a total of 16.5 hours and on the ground for 12 hours. Luckily I had a club seat on the main deck in the nose of the aircraft with an empty seat beside me. Not an experience I would want to repeat though.
While the diversion and delay are explainable you have missed the most interesting part – the human angle.
How about asking the airline for a comment or trying to contact a passenger (ask you subscribers if they were on the flight)?
How about finding out what were the conditions on board?
Did they run out of water, food, toilets full?
Looks like the airline has some serious explaining to do, and not just to the victims of this apparent “fechnical tuck-up”.
We all need to know what went wrong and what will be done to avoid a future repetition before booking with this airline in the future.
Wicked.
Trip from hell. What horrible customer service in Taipei. Hope the passengers demand some type of compensation!
Wow. That was a hell of a flight.
That is disgraceful. And the situation is very much worsened by the arrogance of Cathay in refusing to provide an explanation.
Unbelievable! I suffer from claustrophobia, so this would gave been a nightmare for me. What happens if someone has a medical condition? Surely there must have been some indication of the Honk Kong weather duration? Can’t passengers becdusembarked and sequestered inside the airport?
I was on this flight. It was very stressful that we were stuck in the plane for so many hours. the Cathay Pacific airlines wouldn’t allow us to exit the plane and go inside the airport . Also there was a food shortage of even items like cup soup and snacks. . Luckily I had some food in my suitcase to hold me over. The pilot was very nice and came to talk to everyone and explain the situation . Many people were complaining about back pain, knee pain including me for sitting for so long.
Well, in legal terms, that is ‘unlawful imprisonment’, is it not? Think remedy in the form of fair compensation.
Would love to hear what compensation CP will offer the passengers?
A 100% refund would be the start!
As a point of curiosity – why Taipei? Why not any closer airport???
Why weren’t they allowed to disembark in Taipei ?
Someone needs to be fired given that “imprisonment” while on the ground.
Great story- for us!! A side note for Ian and Jason. On the podcast, most of the details for this story, like flight number, aircraft, origin, and date of service, were not included in the report. But I came here for the rest of the story, so double clicks for FR24!! Thanks for the great work.
I boarded a 14.5 hrs Qatar Airways flight from Atlanta to Doha . Push back was delayed for one hour as brakes were not being released. Finally Captain announced the news and that engineers are trying hard . After sometime captain announced that we will have to shut down the engines and AC to reset the system.After sometime we got the good news and we headed to the runway for take off. But never to be be. We were informed that since engine were running for 2 hrs , we will be short of fuel to Doha .We returned to the tarmac and waited 1 more hour for our unscheduled turn for refuelling. The total time we spent in the aircraft was more than 3.5 hrs before the take-off and total journey to Doha 18 hrs.
Dont understand why the plane was not refuelled earllier before taxiing for first departure.
All I can think of is how my back would be screaming at me, if I had to stay in a airplane seat that long. You’d probably find me laying flat in the aisle for at least a minute or two, as often as possible (yes, I know…so dirty) to iron out my back as my grandma used to say. I’d love to know the reason they couldn’t leave the plane while waiting.
i would have sued them… and lesson learnt NEVER fly Cathay. There are better airlines than Cathay – the best, Singpore air
This really lands as more than just a long flight—it underscores how vital passenger care is, especially when nature intervenes. Nearly 28 hours trapped on board due to severe weather and operational delays is a stark reminder that airlines need transparent communication and support—meals, comfort, clarity—while waiting it out. Here’s hoping Cathay Pacific and others take lessons from this and ensure no one goes through such an ordeal again.
I had a similar experience with Cathay flying Manchester UK to Honk Kong Kai Tak the old airport, B747-400, over 30 years ago! We made three approaches and aborted at the bill board on the hill and finished up in Taipei. We were not allowed off the aircraft including passengers going to Taipei. We sat for a couple of hours and then they let the Taipei passengers off. We were all thirsty and hungry but the galley food and drink had apparently been binned before we reached Hong Kong. After about 3 or 4 hours they delived refreshments, a thick sandwich with a piece of cheese between the thick bread and tea or coffee or something that tasted awful but it was wet and warm. Later we took off with a relief crew and landed at Hong Kong when the typhoon had moved away.
It is staggering that Cathay have never been able to provide something better over the years, in fact it is pathetic.