Around 1,100 stranded Chinese passengers leave Jeju Island

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Around 1,100 stranded Chinese passengers leave Jeju Island

(Xinhua) 08:41, September 16, 2013

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JEJU, Sept. 15 -- After the fifth chartered plane departed from the airport of Jeju Island with 250 passengers at 10: 43 p.m. local time, around 1,100 passengers stranded in the cruise liner Henna have left Jeju Island to Beijing, according to the Chinese Consulate General in Jeju Island.

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 (327 U.S. Dollars) 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, according to the Consulate.

"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, adding that the detained ship is expected to leave as early as Monday after finishing all the departure procedures.

The cruise Henna, with 1,659 passengers and a crew of 650 on board, was scheduled to sail at 4:00 p.m. local time Friday from Jeju to Incheon. 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.

（Editor：ZhangQian、Yao Chun）