After 13-hour flight, passengers in Sydney wait 50 minutes to exit

Australian Herald
26 Jan 2022, 09:13 GMT+10

Passengers on board an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi were detained on board their plane for fifty minutes after arriving on Tuesday night.
The flight which touched down around 9:15pm Tuesday night was at the terminal at 9:25pm.
Several times passengers were ordered back to their seats. They were not allowed to leave then plane until 10:15pm

SYDNEY, NSW, Australia - Passengers on board an Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi were detained on board their plane for fifty minutes are arriving at their terminal on Tuesday night.

The flight which touched down around 9:15pm Tuesday night was at the terminal at 9:25pm. Passengers were told to remain in their seats with seatbelts fastened as quarantine officers would be boarding the plane.

Several times passengers were ordered back to their seats. Passengers were not advised of the reason or outcome of the boarding of the quarantine officers, nor for the delay in them boarding the plane.

It was not until 40 minutes after reaching the terminal (50 minutes after touchdown) that two quarantine offers boarded the plane. They subsequently moved to the back of the plane where at least two passengers were spoken to. After several minutes they left the plane, and disembarking of business class passengers began at 10:14pm.

The Boeing 787-9 has a capacity of around 300 passengers.

The direct flight from Abu Dhabi, which was full to capacity in business class and economy, including a number of babies and toddlers, took a little over 13 hours. The plane was 25 minutes late in departing due to the need to accommodate connecting passengers, many of which had been on long flights from other destinations including London, Dublin and Beirut.

Comment from NSW Health was not obtainable Wednesday as their offices were closed for the Australia Day public holiday.

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