Frozen Wings
We had to fly to Sydney Friday morning for a business meeting. The flight was due to leave just before 8AM. After they loaded us on board, they announced that we would not be able to leave for 30 minutes due to ice on the wings. Ice is a very rare problem in Adelaide, so they do not have any de-icing equipment in Adelaide airport.
After a 30 minute wait (spent doing some crosswords in the newspaper I had luckily picked up), they announced that the ice was still there and it was estimated that we would be able to leave in (another) 30 minutes time.
After another 30 minutes, they announced that the ice still hadn’t melted and we had yet another 30 minutes of waiting. This time they decided to put a movie on (”Breach”, which was very good).
We finally left after having sat on the plane for over and hour and a half. There were a few things that I found strange :
1. Why did they load us onto the plane in the first place if the wings were iced up ?
2. We were parked in the shade of the terminal building. It was a sunny morning. Why didn’t they move the plane into the sunshine to make the ice melt faster ?
3. How hard would it be for them to get some de-icing equipment anyway ?
4. Why did a 6AM flight which a colleague was on manage to fly out on time ?
5. Couldn’t they have done better than a small bottle of water and some peanuts to pacify us ?
Ah, the joys of travel…
June 19th, 2007 at 7:19 pm
You mean to say you were up in Sydney for the day and you didn’t look me up ???? We could have gone out on the town like the good old days - got drunk as bums, played some practical jokes, driven a car or two down some steps, fall over, laugh and make general nuisances of ourselves - just like the “good ol days”.
That’s it where is my good friend list ? and where is the bloody liquid paper - I’ll fix things.
June 19th, 2007 at 8:08 pm
This has nothing to do with frozen wings, peanuts, or forgetting to look up old friends.
Saw this and thought I should share it with someone who has a great mind.
Do you know anyone like that ? Hope the link/text works
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
June 20th, 2007 at 10:10 am
Once everyone is on the plane and the door is closed the plane is considered to have left the terminal. Therefore, the ground/boarding crew have met their KPI of getting everyone on the plane in time and they get to keep their jobs.
Just another example of ridiculous rules to satisfy some hob-knob in an office somewhere making life difficult for the rest of us.
June 20th, 2007 at 10:26 am
Phil, I was only in Sydney for a couple of hours so I didn’t have time to do any catching up. We will definitely do it next time
June 20th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
I bet it was tin-pot airlines.
Useless bunch of twerps.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:12 pm
They could have used those bottles of probably warmish water to melt the ice on the wings