Originally Posted by
Pinkman
But what tech issue warrants a 20 hour delay?
This is just the nature of long-haul ops, isn't it, particularly given timings? And the problem doesn't even have to occur at an outstation.
A few years back I (SLF) was on a BA 744 at LHR departing late in the evening for JNB. During taxi, the weather radar was found to be faulty. Back at the gate, there were a couple of hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix it, and then we hit the curfew and crew hours limits. In theory, there was a small window first thing in the morning for another attempt, but there may have been no spare aircraft and the crew may not yet have had enough rest by then. Any later departure would have mean an arrival at JNB in the middle of the night, with all the attendant problems. So our next reasonable departure time was about 20 hours after the original time, overnight for an early morning arrival at JNB.
I really felt for our cabin crew, who were then going to take minimum rest at JNB during the day and then fly overnight back to LHR on the same evening. It reminded me why I should always cut a grumpy crew a bit of slack because I don't know what they've already had to deal with before I meet them.