I recently flew back from Vancouver, BC, Canada to to Manchester, UK on Thomas Cook airlines. We experienced a fairly small but annoying delay which I wondered if anybody could help explain.
flight details:
Flight no. TCX89L
Aircraft: Airbus A330
Scheduled Dep. YVR: Saturday 23rd Aug 2008, 15:35 (actual 17:10)
Scheduled Arr. MAN: Sunday 24th Aug 2008, 08:40 (actual 09:07)
15:20 We were boarded and ready to go (passenger-wise) 15 minutes before schedulded departure. The pilot announced that we would have to wait until the scheduled departure time (fair enough) as they were "just finishing some paperwork". Also says that we have a very short flight time today and should arive in MAN 40minutes early (good news!)
15:35 Pilot announces that paperwork taking longer than expected and that some information needed to be faxed over from Manchester Ops, therfore we would have a slightly longer delay but should still arrive early.
15:45 Pilot announces that paperwork now received.
16:00 Pilot announces that the Ground Engineers will have to do an "inspection" of the plane following some maintenance work. Hopes this will be done in the next 15 minutes. Turns the seatbelt warning lights off to allow pax to use restrooms. Cabin crew won't allow the downstairs restrooms to be used.
16:35 Pilot annouces that he had been down to the ground to speak to the engineers and they had given the verbal okay. Now need to wait for the engineers to do the necessary paperwork.
16:50 Pilot annouces that everything now in order and will be pushing back shortly. cabin crew just started offering orange drink to pax.
17:00 Pushback from gate D66
17:10 After a surprisingly long taxi we turned on to the runway and took off from a rolling start. Departing over the pacific (26L ?).
YVR control must have been unhappy about something to do with the maintenance records but the crew were obviously unaware about it until the last minute. Seems a bit worrying that the captain who is responsible for the safety of the a/c didn't know about an outstanding maintenance issue which required the plane to be inspected before being allowed to fly. Good job the plane passed, otherwise they could have ended up cancelling the flight.
Can anyone offer any insight in to what happened?
flight details:
Flight no. TCX89L
Aircraft: Airbus A330
Scheduled Dep. YVR: Saturday 23rd Aug 2008, 15:35 (actual 17:10)
Scheduled Arr. MAN: Sunday 24th Aug 2008, 08:40 (actual 09:07)
15:20 We were boarded and ready to go (passenger-wise) 15 minutes before schedulded departure. The pilot announced that we would have to wait until the scheduled departure time (fair enough) as they were "just finishing some paperwork". Also says that we have a very short flight time today and should arive in MAN 40minutes early (good news!)
15:35 Pilot announces that paperwork taking longer than expected and that some information needed to be faxed over from Manchester Ops, therfore we would have a slightly longer delay but should still arrive early.
15:45 Pilot announces that paperwork now received.
16:00 Pilot announces that the Ground Engineers will have to do an "inspection" of the plane following some maintenance work. Hopes this will be done in the next 15 minutes. Turns the seatbelt warning lights off to allow pax to use restrooms. Cabin crew won't allow the downstairs restrooms to be used.
16:35 Pilot annouces that he had been down to the ground to speak to the engineers and they had given the verbal okay. Now need to wait for the engineers to do the necessary paperwork.
16:50 Pilot annouces that everything now in order and will be pushing back shortly. cabin crew just started offering orange drink to pax.
17:00 Pushback from gate D66
17:10 After a surprisingly long taxi we turned on to the runway and took off from a rolling start. Departing over the pacific (26L ?).
YVR control must have been unhappy about something to do with the maintenance records but the crew were obviously unaware about it until the last minute. Seems a bit worrying that the captain who is responsible for the safety of the a/c didn't know about an outstanding maintenance issue which required the plane to be inspected before being allowed to fly. Good job the plane passed, otherwise they could have ended up cancelling the flight.
Can anyone offer any insight in to what happened?
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