The Five Hour Itch
I was flying from Glasgow to London on EasyJet. A 50-minute flight. So we leave the gate half an hour late, ok, no biggie. The plane taxis to the waiting point just off the runway, by which point we still haven’t had the safety instructions and the cabin crew look concerned.
We sit there for 10 minutes while they are doing something up front when finally an announcement comes on: “There has been a problem with the cabin control system, please bear with us while we contact head office for help.”
Another 10 minutes pass, and there’s another announcement. “We have resolved the issue, however, we no longer have enough fuel and will have to taxi back to the gate”.
It takes about 15 minutes to finally get back to the gate, before another announcement. “We have been informed that there will be a half hour delay getting fuel due to higher than expected demand.”
An hour and a half later the plane finally takes off – we fly to Gatwick without incident, but upon landing the plane simply pulls over and parks on the apron, with another announcement: “Our assigned gate has been taken, we have to wait for another to open up.”
An hour later, we finally make it to the gate, only to be put on buses, which then sit by the plane for about 15 minutes longer than they needed to. So that’s how a 50-minute journey turned into a 5 hour one. Story credit: Reddit / (barc0de)