AirAsia Flight QZ8501: Hotel Evicts Victims' Families on New Year's Eve

The hotel claims that it had no rooms available for the relatives and AirAsia was fully aware about the situation.

AirAsia Flight Missing — Family members of passengers onboard missing AirAsia flight QZ8501 cry at a waiting area in Juanda International Airport, Surabaya.Reuters

With several hotels around the Surabaya's Juanda International Airport rushing to cater to their 'more profitable' clients, several grieving family members of the crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 found themselves unceremoniously evicted out of hotel rooms on the New Year's Eve.

The Strait Times report, citing a local news source, stated that some of the families of the AirAsia flight QZ8501 were evicted out of the Hotel Halogen, which is located near Surabaya's Juanda International Airport. It said that the hotel staff removed the luggage of the families without even informing them.

The crashed AirAsia flight QZ8501 claimed the lives of the 162 people, including the flight crew members and now with search parties locating the bodies of the victims, several relatives of the dead have started assembling at the Surabaya International airport. AirAsia authorities claim that they have been doing their best to provide accommodation to the grieving relatives.

The relatives of the AirAsia passengers killed in the air crash near the Java Sea told local media that while AirAsia had promised to provide accomodation, the hotel staff reportedly had an understanding that the families could stay in the hotel only till Thursday.

Several relatives, after coming back from the Surabaya's Juanda International Airport in the evening, found that their luggage were checked out from their rooms by the hotel staff.

Following the mistreatment of the relatives of the QZ8501 crash victims, the AirAsia Indonesia boss Sunu Widiatmoko in a press conference told the media that they are finding it hard to find rooms on New Year's Eve.

The hotel authorities reportedly said they had informed the AirAsia representatives about the status of the room bookings and the aviation company had agreed with moving of the luggage.

The "insensitive" incident comes at a time when the relatives of the 'missing' AirAsia passengers are desperately waiting to at least recover the bodies of their loved ones. As on Thursday, 1 January, a total of eight bodies have been recovered.

The debris of the AirAsia flight QZ8501, which went missing on 28 January, was finally spotted on Tuesday and since then the search teams have been trying to locate the bodies of the 162 people onboard.