Holiday travel stress became too much for some of the 2,000 stranded passengers at an airport in central China, with some passengers smashing computers and causing a “riot,” the Global Times newspaper has reported.
Flight delays at the Xinzheng International Airport in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, were caused by days of heavy snowfall in the region and came at the peak travel season in China as workers were returning home from the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday.
The anger began to erupt around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, when some passengers smashed an information kiosk, The Henan Business Daily reported. On Thursday morning, an angry female passenger “stormed” into an airport control room, struck an employee and threw a drink over the worker’s head.
“Actually, I’ve been wronged as well. We can do nothing about the weather,” Hu Xiaoyu, the airport ground services staff member who was attacked, told The Henan Business Daily.
The passenger who threw the drink over her head also threatened to post photos online, Ms. Hu said.
“Many passengers don’t understand that we also hope that their departure will be smooth,” Ms. Hu said, explaining that delays mean more work for her as well. The newspaper reported that Ms. Hu had eaten only one meal during her 30-hour shift.
The Henan Business Daily reported that the airport experienced intermittent shutdowns on Wednesday and, according to Global Times, departures at the airport were halted Thursday afternoon until about 10 p.m.
Photos posted on the official Sina Weibo account of the Nanfang Daily newspaper, reportedly taken at the airport, showed a China Southern Airlines counter with the sign skewed precariously and groups of passengers sitting on their luggage carts in front of check-in counters.
The staggering numbers of Chinese traveling around the holiday place a heavy load on the country’s transportation system, even when all is operating normally. The annual movement of people around Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, has been called the world’s largest seasonal migration with about 3.6 billion journeys made over 40 days.
Passengers at the Zhengzhou airport were not the only ones affected by poor weather. According to FlightStats, a travel information tracker, there were also significant delays from airports in Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen on Thursday. On Friday, FlightStats showed continued problems in Zhengzhou, with about 60 delayed or cancelled flights. Snowfall also affected train passengers as the authorities ordered Chinese rail operators to limit train speeds to no more than 160 to 200 kilometers an hour, or 99 to 124 miles an hour, on certain routes, causing delays.
According to a Spring Festival migration-tracking website set up by Baidu, Zhengzhou was not even in the top 10 cities in China for the number of departures on Friday. Baidu, using cellphone-based locations, ranked Beijing in first place, followed by Shanghai and Chongqing.
The Zhengzhou airport website, www.zzairport.com, was down for hours on Friday, presumably as people tried to check the flight situation. Visitors trying to access the website were met with a “1040: Too many connections” message on a blank webpage.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Public Security announced that this Spring Festival saw a lower number of travel-related fatalities than last year. From Jan. 31 to Feb. 6, there were no motor vehicle accidents in China involving more than 10 fatalities, and overall traffic deaths were down by half, the ministry said on its website on Thursday.