Flight Delays Hinder Family Gathering

March 22, 2016

in Delay/Cancellation Stories

A few summers ago my family decided to go on a road trip through America starting in Denver. I was living in London at the time and the rest of my family were in Dubai. We therefore made arrangements to meet in Denver.

I was meant to have the easier journey. While they had to fly from Dubai to San Francisco and then connect on to a separately booked flight to Denver, I simply had a direct flight to Denver. Unfortunately my easy direct British Airways flight ended up being rather interesting.

As seems normal with international flights, there was about an hour delay before boarding. I wasn’t too worried about it as these delays are generally caught up in the air. Once we were finally on the plane and second in line to take off, everything stopped. It seemed that there was an incoming emergency to Heathrow so there was no fire cover for outbound flights, halting all flights. We waited on the apron for around 2 hours. Of course, no drinks could be served as we were so close to the runway and we couldn’t be sent back to the gate as we were blocked in by other planes. Finally the emergency was dealt with and we were on our way.

Unfortunately luck was not on our side for that flight as there was a thunderstorm over Denver Airport causing it to temporarily close. As we had spent so much time sitting waiting at Heathrow, we didn’t have the fuel to circle and so we had to divert to Colorado Springs. As so many other planes had to divert, there was a queue for refueling. We were told that unless we could refuel within 45 minutes, Denver Airport baggage handlers would have gone home and so they would have to bus us up to Denver! I don’t know what the pilots said, but we were luckily quickly on our way to Denver before everyone went home.

Although I was meant to arrive a few hours before the rest of my family, they ended up getting there before me. We had a lovely trip and luckily my home bound trip was extremely uneventful!

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

patsytp March 29, 2016 at 6:31 am

at least you all got to be together! flights invariably go tits up… I'm flying from Aus to Boston next week and back 12 days after, and have already had the booked /confirmed/ seat allocated flight on the return leg scrapped. It no longer exists. I had already brought my flight forward 2 days due to the ridiculously high prices of hotels around Cambridge etc due to the Boston Marathon on my departing weekend… and now I get to leave a day early, pay $450 US for a hotel room I will use for about four hours (not worth trying to re-book…BM took care of hotel space) and now have a layover in Dubai for 12 hours instead of 3. At least they have "arranged" a free airport hotel room for me etc… but wouldn't cover the total lack of waste for the hotel room in Boston, that I planned to sleep in, not shower and watch TV in for a measly few hours. Think yourself lucky! My debacle has only about to begin!

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