When it goes wrong...
Discussion
I had the pleasure of spending several hours in Schiphol airport earlier in the week. Great viewing gallery on top of the terminal...
Eventually got checked in, lazy lunch, bit of shopping etc. My flight was 2 hour delayed as the airline had used the plane earlier in the day to rescue some stranded passengers.
What happened next was farcical... Firstly the airline cancelled a Birmingham flight and transferred a fair no of passengers onto ours.
As the flight was delayed the crew were keen to get back in the air. There was a comical few moments of the captain noticing that we've been waiting to board, and they are waiting for us - but it's not happening... The captain went from beckoning us on board with his hands, running his wiper fast to tget the gate agents attention to leaning out his window... He gave up at that point and sent the first officer....
Once boarded, (very slowly as the gate agents were checking all bags for size - so that took 40 minutes... Nothing happened... It turned out that the baggage loaders had put all of the Birmingham luggage on our flight. So they had to unload everything and make sure they only had baggage belonging to people on the plane...
Pushback... Eventually.... Should be good... Tug away of we go - about 2 feet straight ahead when we stop suddenly. They try again a little more gingerly... same again... Few minutes later Captain is back, explaining we have a small technical problem, and he has to get the ground crew back... That took ten minutes (they forget to turn a lever that returns control of his steering back to the captain - nothing essential at all!).
And then of course we were taking off from the new runway, 15 minutes taxi towards England away.....
When it pours it rains...
Eventually got checked in, lazy lunch, bit of shopping etc. My flight was 2 hour delayed as the airline had used the plane earlier in the day to rescue some stranded passengers.
What happened next was farcical... Firstly the airline cancelled a Birmingham flight and transferred a fair no of passengers onto ours.
As the flight was delayed the crew were keen to get back in the air. There was a comical few moments of the captain noticing that we've been waiting to board, and they are waiting for us - but it's not happening... The captain went from beckoning us on board with his hands, running his wiper fast to tget the gate agents attention to leaning out his window... He gave up at that point and sent the first officer....
Once boarded, (very slowly as the gate agents were checking all bags for size - so that took 40 minutes... Nothing happened... It turned out that the baggage loaders had put all of the Birmingham luggage on our flight. So they had to unload everything and make sure they only had baggage belonging to people on the plane...
Pushback... Eventually.... Should be good... Tug away of we go - about 2 feet straight ahead when we stop suddenly. They try again a little more gingerly... same again... Few minutes later Captain is back, explaining we have a small technical problem, and he has to get the ground crew back... That took ten minutes (they forget to turn a lever that returns control of his steering back to the captain - nothing essential at all!).
And then of course we were taking off from the new runway, 15 minutes taxi towards England away.....
When it pours it rains...
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