BEIJING, Sept 16: Over 1,100 Chinese tourists stranded in South Korea for days following a legal dispute have returned home via emergency flights.
With the departure of the fifth chartered plane from the airport of Jeju Island with 250 passengers, around 1,100 passengers stranded in the cruise liner Henna have left the Island to Beijing, according to the Chinese Consulate General in Jeju Island.
The 47,000-tonnes cruise Henna — carrying some 1,600 passengers and 650 crews — has been held at South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju since its arrival on Friday.
The luxury liner set off from China’s northeastern port of Tianjin on Friday to sail around the Korean peninsula before returning six days later.
It was detained before departure by a Jeju court, which received a seizure application on claims of legal disputes from a subsidiary company of Jiangsu Shagang Group Co Ltd,, the cruise operator said on Saturday.
The company did not elaborate on the details of the dispute.
The HNA Tourism, the Beijing-based operator of the Henna, has so far sent five chartered planes to South Korea to bring back passengers of the detained cruise liner, said Sun Limin, an official of the Chinese Consulate General in Jeju Island.
Each passenger taking the chartered plane has signed an agreement with the HNA to accept a compensation of around 2,000 RMB (USD 327) or a free ticket of Henna within one year, Sun said.
A total of 550 passengers are still staying on board.
Some 55 of them demanded higher compensations and reject to take the chartered plane, while others, who are mostly the elders, preferred to return to China on cruise Henna, state-run Xinhua news agency reported. (PTI)
Follow our WhatsApp channel