Changi Airport police dealt with rowdy travellers professionally: police
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) says Auxiliary and Airport police were found to have discharged their duties professionally after a group of Chinese national travellers claimed that they were assaulted by the officers at Changi Airport on Tuesday.
The Chinese passengers on Hong Kong Airlines were on a protest after a nine hour delay of their flight back to Hong Kong from Singapore. A woman from the group claimed that the police had "assaulted" them and threatened them with their guns and handcuffs, Apple Daily reported.
SPF said, in a statement, that they received a call for assistance from a customer service officer from Changi Airport Terminal 2.
They were informed that there was "rowdy boisterous behaviour" from the group of frustrated passengers over the amount of compensation from the airline for the flight delay.
After reviewing the CCTV footage, SPF confirmed that the Auxiliary Police officers present at the scene "did not use a trolley to push it into the group".
The footage also revealed that "the rowdy passengers had indeed obstructed the path of other passengers and were causing a public nuisance".
"A female Auxiliary Police officer was in fact, seen drawing her handcuffs when a section of the group began to taunt her. Both Auxiliary and Airport Police officers discharged their duties professionally in restoring order and have ensured that airport operations at the terminal were not interrupted," said the statement.
Passengers continued to protest after landing in Hong Kong
The protest continued even after the passengers landed at Hong Kong airport at 5.30am on Wednesday, reported CNN.
80 passengers refused to alight the plane and staged a plane sit-in, on Hong Kong Airlines flight 752, demanding the airline to increase the compensation offer of $66 (HK$400) per passenger.
59 passengers accepted the offer and left the aircraft at 9am but 21 passengers continued to protest until 1.30pm when the airline raised the compensation to $200 (HK$1200) each.
Watch a video of the protest below.
