Broken Plane

Yesterday, I walked into the office and it took about three hours to cool down and stop sweating, so today I opted for a taxi.  This proved to be a good move, as the aircon in the office was broken so we were sweltering all day.  At one point, of the customer staff brought me a rubber chicken for company (I was sat on my own) and moved our fan closer to me.  They also brought us ice lollies - They're a good bunch.

With train problems caused by today's extreme heat, many of the London based team left early to make their way home.  Two of them that work with us had to stay to do a presentation (very well received apparently) and then they headed off early afternoon.  We opted to stay and leave at 4pm for our taxi to the airport.

The plane was only 10 minutes delayed coming down from Leeds, and so we went through security at our usual time, and boarded as normal.  The plane was extremely hot!  They thankfully offered us water as we got on, but they can't turn on the blowers without the engines running so it was a bit like an oven.  Lots of people were fanning themselves with their safety cards.

We left the gate as normal, and then parked waiting to go onto the runway.  There was another plane sat at the end of the runway, and it sat there.  And sat there.  The pilot came on and said something garbled over the tannoy that included the word "airspace".  We waited and melted some more (hottest day of the year - it was about 28 degrees in Southampton).  The little plane left, and we proceeded onto the runway, did a U turn, and came back to the gate.

It turned out that because of thunderstorms over London, the airspace was congested and that region's Air Traffic Control wouldn't allow us to take off.  The little plane was heading across to France, and so would avoid that area.

We de-planed, got onto the bus and trundled back to the terminal, but without our hand luggage.  This plane is so small it doesn't have overhead lockers, so we have to use a valet baggage cart, and they put the bags in the hold.

We were kind of left on our own back in the terminal - the departure board was confusing - so we made our way up to the lounge.  Some of us had lounge tickets, others didn't.  We pled a sob story around melting on a plane that had turned back and this was the only place with aircon.  We were prepared to pay the fee, but the lady on the desk was nice enough to let us stay and wait it out.  Within half an hour or so, she told us we were boarding again, and we left.

We were asked to present our id and boarding pass at the gate as we reboarded - many people had left their passport in the hand baggage (which they didn't have), so were thankfully able to get back on the bus with just their boarding pass.

We were bussed back out to the plane and got back on.  Still stifling, no water this time.  We waited.  And waited.  And melted.  And waited.  Nothing was happening other than people in the cockpit talking to people from the ground staff.  The temperature was increasing, and the fanning was getting stronger.  Still nothing happened.

One of my colleagues got a bit hot and bothered at this point and went to wait at the bottom of the airplane steps.  A couple of other people followed.  Then a bus turned up, and we all got off.

They told us there was a problem with the aircraft and they needed to "restart it" but they could only do this when we were all on the bus.  We congregated around the bus and waited.  And then waited some more.

Eventually a member of the ground staff started speaking to some of the people outside the bus (ignoring those of us inside!) and explained that there was a technical problem with the plane and that restarting it wasn't working.  They were still trying to sort it (we could see the pilot/co-pilot sat on the plane reading manuals).  After more time waiting on the bus, they decided the flight was cancelled.  The first officer came out of the plane to explain that the aircraft was "U.S." which we assume was pilot speak for broken.  He was explaining to someone that the aircraft systems weren't behaving - avionics one side worked, but not the other, and when they turned it off and on again it flipped, with the working side now broken and the other side working.  They'd not seen the problem before and there were no engineers in Southampton who could look at it.  We were "free to go" which was lovely, but we weren't home.

Bus.  Terminal.  But this time we went through arrivals and got all our bags back, including the hold luggage.  There was a group of 9 of our staff on this plane and one from the client.  The client lady was lovely, and got onto their travel team to try and get us some alternate options for getting home, like three taxis.  The taxi rank in the airport refused to take us that far.

There was a massive queue at the flybe desk as the Newcastle flight had also been cancelled, so we joined the back of this queue to find out what our options were.  Eventually they split the queue so we could have a Leeds desk and ignore the Newcastle people who were being processed very slowly.

We were offered - refund, rebook on this flight another day, or plane to Manchester and then provided transport through to Leeds Bradford Airport.  The Manchester flight was supposed to leave about the same time as ours, but was delayed because another flight had stolen their aircraft and they had to wait for another one to become available(!).  There were 27 seats left on this flight to Manchester, so we opted for that.  

We were given new boarding passes and then had to go through security again.  The security team were a little confused at seeing us again and I had to explain what had happened.

At this point it was about 9.15pm.  Our Leeds flight should have left at 6.45pm.  We were due to leave at 10.05pm, so I found a quiet corner where I could charge up my ailing phone.

The plane was a luxury model - overhead lockers, two seats either side, recorded safety announcement and everything. :-). I didn't get a window seat though, but it was dark.

There were two British Airways planes at Southampton Airport, one of which was letting people off as we took off.  They had both been diverted from London City Airport due to the weather and congestion.  It's not normal to see big BA planes there!

We left at 10.15pm for the 40 minute flight up to Manchester.  When we arrived it was raining ("It's Manchester, what do you expect!?").

The announcement on the flight as that we should go through to the enquiries desk at the airport to find out what had happened with our onward journey.  But, by the time we got there, it was shut as it was after 11pm.  We asked our flight crew (who happened to be wandering by) and they suggesting using a phone around the corner to contact the airline.  The airline weren't helpful.

The lack of people to help us at this point was disappointing.  The group splintered and finally we worked out which taxi company was going to help us.  Some of the group managed to get in taxis and set off.  I was with the group at the taxi desk who was concerned he didn't have everyone.  We persuaded him to put the six of us (four from my company and two other random travellers) into a taxi and we set off.

There was a lady in the cab who needed to get to central Leeds, and the taxi agreed to take her in for a fee, so I tagged along and got him to drive past my house on the way.  Got home at 12.50am.