Bad Luck With Airlines...or good luck?

[Nick W.]

Hey All,

Inspired by Kurt's thread on baggage, I thought it might be nice to share some back luck/good luck experience with airlines!

The one that comes to mind for me was flying from DXB to SYD late last year. We were meant to be on EK418, which is a 773 service via Bangkok. However, even though we got up at 4am (Dubai time) for the early morning departure, fog resulted in some fairly massive traffic jams, and when we arrived were part of that brilliant % of the flight that is overbooked! So after 30min of stalling and wondering what was going to happen, check-in breakdowns and a very crowded terminal we had pretty much given up on flying out that day, and we were not too happy about it (albeit, I was enjoying some terminal spotting, but that's beside the point). However, although we were verrry late for EK418, we were verrrry early for EK412, a direct service on the A345. Emirates supervisers weighed up the options, and gave us the direct flight with no extra cost.

But of course we had some fairly odd seats, so odd that there were not enough PTV's to go around and we had to share traytables with other guests! I wasn't too fusses, A345 was nice!

A bit of bad luck turned good!...ish

Similiar stories, anyone?

[Mick M]

Here's one for the fear of flying crowd........!

A colleague of mine was due to fly on the Pan Am flight (21.12.88) that was subsequently blown up by Libyian terrorists over Lockerbie Scotland and missed the flight because of a connecting delay with another flight.

Same trip, returning to Australia, she then flew on United flight 811(24.2.89), that had a significant portion of the forward fuselage torn away due to a structural failure and depressurisation. 9 passengers were lost after being sucked out the open fuselage.

That is either good luck, or bad luck. Either way she lived to tell the tale!

[Matt D]

BA10 saturday 19th SYD-LHR.

After its usual 10hr layover it pushed back on time only to reach the 16R holding point to find that half the pax hadn't heard the safety briefing due PA problems. Sat at the hold for 5 minutes and then taxied back to the terminal. QF engineers fixed the problem and it departed 90 minutes late.

In the air they quickly realised that only a small percentage of the IFE screens worked (the flight was full to the gills). During the 90min turnaround in bangkok the crew advised it had been fixed but everyone quickly found that a large percentage of pax had nothing more than the moving map for the entire flight.

Most ended up arriving 2.5 hrs late not having anything more than a moving map as entertainment for 22hrs flying.

[Greg McDonald]

I've got a horror story to beat you all!!



I ONCE FLEW WITH JETSTAR.........

[Montague S]

ANA - 001

IAD-NRT ended up running 6hrs late, I get to Dulles and the ANA hottie says, 'Mr Smith, your flight is running 6hrs late, are you stopping in Tokyo?' I reply with no, I'm going onward to Singapore...lovely lady says you will need to take United flight 803 so you don't miss your connection...I say ok, no worries, she takes me over to UA and they process my info and send me on my way.

when I made my way to C concourse I got the pleasant podium surprise of a Business Class upgrade...I must admit I would have preferred being on the ANA 77W with 50 pax than the UA 772 in J class which was full...

but a free ride in Business for the sheer inconvenience is always a welcome gift.