In early 2000's booked on Airtours package to Maldives from Gatwick via Bahrain on B767-300. I believe both Airtours and Monarch at the time based crews in Bahrain and changed them for the onward return flights to Goa, Maldives and Trivandrum. While at check-in area an announcement was made for all premium booked pax to report to a certain desk number. Another announcement made stating there would be no in-flight entertainment and that the flight would now go to Dubai with the onward leg on an Emirates B777 but not giving the specific reason. I contacted some ex work colleagues at Gatwick who confirmed the B767 allocated for the flight had been damaged by ground equipment earlier in the day and that Airtours were now using a DC10-30 for the flight (G-BYDA) which was positioning in from Manchester. With no DC10 crew at Bahrain they elected Dubai and after minimum crew rest the same crew doing the return. The returning pax that day must have been very confused.and probably quite delayed.
The next year I did the same trip with Airtours but this time non-stop on the same DC10 and about 9.5 hours flight time. The return flight can take up to 11 hours due headwinds and once on board the captain announced they were delaying departure as the temperature needed to drop slightly enabling the aircraft performance to reach Gatwick without a fuel stop. Once we taxied out I warned my partner to expect a very long take-off roll. It didn't disappoint ! About 2 hours out from Gatwick the captain announced they didn't need a fuel stop. After landing we were allocated a stand on the South Terminal Pier 2 and when reaching it the aircraft stopped on the taxiway for 10-15 mins with engines running then captain announced the allocated stand was blocked by a broken down vehicle so they were negotiating another. After another 20 mins or so the captain announced they were shutting down the engines and the aircraft would be towed to another stand on Pier 3 (satellite). We eventually parked about 1 hour after landing.