* not real life*
Sadly a captain got news his wife had terminal cancer, thiswas devastating news for the family their 5 adult kids with partners and 12grand children.
The wife had always wanted to do a big cruise on the Queen Mary in fact it wason her bucket list, as a loving husband he decided to secretly take a mortgageof $250,000 on the family house and have all the family (24) go on a 90 day cruiseon the Queen Mary the last cruise before it was going for a 12 month refurbish.
The Captain was rostered for a flight to London that landed 7 hours before thecruise ship departed and managed to get the rest of his family on the sameflight as he was going to be in command of that day.
On the day the captain (2 hours before departure) checked the weather and itwas pretty good with just a few storms around but getting bigger, the aircraftwas almost fully booked and had 2,400 kg of freight and was going to be veryclose to max takeoff.
As this flight was important to the captain he told the dispatcher that hewanted 2,000 kg more fuel. The dispatcher explained that the fuel load was wellwithin legal limits, but the captain said "I want 2,000 more fuel". Thedispatcher said ok I will arrange that for you, there may be a 5-10 minutedelay but I will keep you informed.
The captain now happy having plenty of fuel for holding ifrequired got ready with pre flight checks.
The dispatcher firstly calls the refulers to put 2,000 kg of extra fuel on theplane, checks the manifests and sees the 2,400 kg freight is in fact mail freightand part of a new $3 billion contract the company just won.
Thinking quickly the dispatcher calls for the flight to be delayed as noboarding has taken place and an almost empty aircraft can take all 200 paxs andbaggage on the next flight in 8 hours time. It will inconvenient for some paxbut they will get to their location, all be it a little late - but the mailcontract will be on time.
The dispatcher calls the captain and says there will not be any delay and hewill bring up the new load sheet shortly.
The dispatcher gives the captain his new load sheet that has zero pax and only2,400 of freight and fully compliant with regulations and captains request forfuel load.
I don't think a captain has the power/responsibility or command to demand (legal)freight be off loaded and pax be loaded - but I do wonder if he boarded thecruise ship alone or blew the entire $250,000.