S’pore woman thanks MFA for arranging ‘seamless’ return home from Middle East, explains why tickets were S$600 – Mothership.SG

On Mar. 7, one woman, who goes by Heytwolittlepeas (Francesca) on Instagram, shared a video on her stories of a Singapore Airlines plane on the tarmac.

“Seeing your national carrier at an airport it doesn’t serve is so damn cool,” she said in the caption, and thanked Singapore Airlines.

She later also expressed gratitude to the officials behind the operation in another video.

Getting help from MFA

Despite the tumultuous situation in the region, it was simple to get in touch with MFA, Francesca told Mothership.

She was initially scheduled to fly home from Dubai on Mar. 3, but the flight kept getting cancelled.

While she said Dubai was safe, her company’s four attempts to book a flight for her to other parts of Asia also failed.

She finally decided to get on an MFA-organised repatriation flight so that she could get home by the end of the weekend.

After contacting MFA from Dubai on Mar. 6, she did not have to wait long for Estelle, an MFA employee, to help her register for the flight.

Francesca described how helpful Estelle was throughout the process, including when there was a hold-up at the Dubai pick-up point.

On Instagram, before taking off, she also talked about the incredible amount of assistance everyone received from the officials throughout the process, including a briefing, a bus ride, going through immigration, and the pre-printing of everyone’s air tickets and luggage tags.

“Everything was very seamless,” she said. “There’s a lot of us, but never once [did we feel] very frustrated or lost, like [we] don’t know what’s going on.”

“So much effort” has been put into ensuring everyone was happy, she added.

The S$600 ticket

Francesca also addressed the S$600 ticket for the repatriation flights, which she said has raised some questions.

Each ticket on these flights was priced at S$600 per seat, CNA reported, citing an email sent to a Singaporean in Abu Dhabi after e-registering with MFA.

“This is not an evacuation, this is an assisted return,” she said. “And S$600 will not be able to get you this kind of service anyway.”

Mothership understands that the price is already subsidised from what a ticket and services such as those provided would usually cost, let alone in this kind of extraordinary situation.

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Top images from heytwolittlepeas/Instagram and Singapore Embassy in Abu Dhabi and Consulate-General in Dubai/Facebook