Funny you should all be talking about delays and fuel emergencies with Transjet etc.
I Flew Tranjsjet out of NCL a couple of weeks ago to Rhodes. the original flight out of Rhodes was an indefinite technical delay, so they whilstled up an MD80 outy of Manchester with a new crew.
Before pushback the Captain comes down the isle telling all us passengers that he may not have enough fuel to get to Rhodes owing to his fuel contingency and runway length/wind at NCL so he may need to divert to some place he cant pronounce but its the second biggest airport in Greece apparently. A bit disconcerting to a low hours PPL whom always made sure I had an hours worth of fuel left and knew all my alternates.
About 4 hours in to the flight we start descending and all goes v quiet on the engine front which was most disconcerting. This carried on for some forty minutes, until we where told that we were landing in Rhodes. A simple message to the passengers stating we where not diverting for fuel would have been nice and reasurring.
Apart from that everything else was fine, although some entertainment would have been nice.
I get the impression there are far too many charter airlines flying aircraft which should be doing the freight run which go tech on a regular basis.Next time I book a package holiday (if ever again) I will insist on the name of the airline they fly with. ( and Im not talikng the likes of Britannia. Monarch , Air 2000 etc ) If I havent heard of them I wont book.
