Earlier today a BA Cityflyer flight from Milan Linate diverted to Southend due to bad weather, and the return back to Milan also began in Southend (the aircraft spends Friday and Saturday night in Milan)
A single divert is pretty mundane, but what puzzles me is why a divert like this causes chaos. The E190 ended up landing at Southend just before 8 am. The pax for a 0940 departure fron LCY were checked in, luggage accepted at checkin desks, and only at the LCY gate just before gate-closing time were they told to then go collect their bags from arrivals, wait for a coach to take them to Southend and then end up departing SEN 4 hours after the original LCY departure time or 5h30 after the plane landed at SEN following bad weather
LCY-SEN is about 45 mins to drive. So why does a divert like this which should not be unexpected with winter weather take so long to resolve ? And no, the handling agents wouldn't say anything beyond the catch-all 'operational reasons' ! I don't mean to have a moan - more trying to understand why this all takes so long to be resolved, especially when SEN has ample spare airport capacity