Passengers frustrated...

In reply to what I consider two naïve letters from Ryan Kelly and Jason Shutt (Praise For Air Malta, August 16) I have to say they have ever so slightly missed the point of many of the passengers who have complained about their treatment on leaving the flight (KM103) that evening and the next day, myself and my family included.

We were grateful for the way the crew handled the emergency and agree that it would not have been wise to give a running commentary of the situation they were dealing with at the time. We also understand that you cannot suddenly "magic up" a number of hotel rooms when a flight is suddenly diverted to a location, though I would be surprised if airport authorities did not have this type of situation covered under some sort of contingency plan. The main frustration that night and the fiasco at Orly when we returned later on in the morning was communication and control, or lack of!

We British love our queues but to be at the back of one for several hours with nobody telling you what's going on even after repeated requests, not knowing whether you were going to get on one of the two flights, was appalling. We had hoped wrongly on arriving back at the airport that from the time we had landed just after midnight some sort of action plan would have been set in motion to deal with this extra influx of passengers, but no, no communication, no plan.

So again to Mr Shutt and Mr Kelly, this was not a group of whinging passengers ungrateful to the Air Malta crew for getting us on the ground safely, it was a group of frustrated passengers given little information as to what was going to happen to them for a number of hours and also reacting to the initial statement from Air Malta that "reassures its customers that everything possible was done to minimise any discomfort".

The service we were given on the ground at Orly airport that night fell way short of what we should have reasonably expected to be given in the circumstances.

On a final note I had the further misfortune to be taken ill during the second week on the island and was hospitalised at St James. The treatment I was given was fantastic by a well-qualified and caring team Air Malta take note.