On a recent flight into Gatwick the first few passengers got off the aircraft but the rest of us were stopped because of a problem with the jetty connecting the aircraft to the terminal building. (Alarms going off somewhere) Several people were slightly inconvenienced and some even annoyed as they had already decided they wanted to leave the plane for an urgent appointment with their first heart attack.
I wasn’t in a hurry so I waited and after a few minutes the problem was solved.
Does this happen often?
Who is in charge pilots or ground crew?
Do they still have old fashioned steps at Gatwick, if not I had a vision of being towed to a different jetty, involving all the bags going back in the over head lockers and passengers being strapped in again while the aircraft was moved?
Problem with this last option was that, I suspect some one was already unloading the bags from the hold, so they would have had to stop work as well.
Is there a set procedure for these problems?