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Stranded ship鈥檚 passengers take the plane home
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Hundreds of Chinese tourists returned home via emergency flights yesterday after their cruise ship was stranded in South Korea following a legal dispute.
The 47,000-ton Henna — carrying some 1,600 passengers and 650 crew — 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 to sail around the Korean Peninsula before returning six days later. But a court banned the ship from leaving Jeju after a seizure request was made by Hong Kong-based Shagang Shipping following a “dispute,” the Beijing-based operator of the ship, HNA Cruise, said in a statement.
The company did not elaborate on the details of the dispute.
The Henna was due to sail from Jeju to Incheon at 4pm on Friday, HNA Cruise said.
After a fifth plane chartered by the company left the island with 250 passengers on board at 10:43pm yesterday, only around 550 people were left on the cruise liner, according to the Chinese Consulate General in Jeju.
Each passenger who chose to fly home had signed an agreement with HNA to accept compensation of around 2,000 yuan (US$327) or a free voyage on the Henna within a year, Sun Limin, a consulate official, said.
Of the passengers staying on the ship, some 55 had demanded higher compensation, while others, mostly older passengers, were choosing to return to China on the Henna when it is released, the consulate said.
“We can hardly deal with all the disputes and satisfy all the passengers in Jeju, so we will try our best to bring all 550 passengers home with the cruise liner Henna tomorrow,” Sun said last night.
He said the detained ship was expected to leave as early as today after departure procedures had been completed.
According to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, HNA Cruise was in the process of paying a deposit of 3 billion won (US$2.7 million) to the Jeju court to secure the release of the ship.
A growing number of Chinese tourists are visiting neighboring South Korea, especially the southern island of Jeju.
About 2.8 million Chinese visited the country last year, nearly a quarter of the 11 million foreigners who traveled there in 2012.
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