Passengers of SA Airlink flight SA8664 reduced to tears

Once on board, passengers were told the plane was carrying too much fuel. They would be flying low and slow in order to use more fuel in less time. What would happen to all that fuel in the event of a crash landing, was unclear.

SHOOT: Just as SAA makes profits again, it appears it can't keep its fleet in the sky, and won't have a problem with excess passengers based on these reports.

When the second plane was ready, the engine light was out. Once again, the engineers were called.
An American woman, whose seat was assigned to someone else, cried out hysterically: "I want off, I want off..." She did get off, with her husband right behind her.
Six foreign gynaecologists who had visited the Kruger Park after a conference, missed their flight to London.
Dr Paola Iturralbe from Mexico was one of the foreigners who felt the 2010 World Cup would be a "disaster" if this was how South African companies treated their clients.

clipped from www.news24.com Cape Town – Three weeks after an SA Airlink plane crash-landed in Durban, the passengers of SA Airlink flight SA8664 were reduced to tears and anger after delays and a diversion resulted in their journey taking 12 hours. The flight was supposed to take off from Kruger Mpumalanga airport at 13:00 and land in Cape Town two-and-a-half hours later. Friends and family were finally able to fetch passengers at 01:00. More than 20 foreigners were aboard the flight. The drama started to unfold when a part had to be flown to Nelspruit to repair an engine. Then the window demister stopped working. Passengers were left waiting without much information. After about six hours they were informed that they'd first have to fly to Johannesburg, since the demister wouldn't be as necessary in the "good weather". Due to the low flight trajectory, however, there was severe turbulence which caused the plane to shake. The flaps were lowered for greater air resistance, causing unusual, loud noises.