Delays after pushback

[alserire]

Brother has been on a plane for an hour at Nice waiting for pushback.

the delays there at the moment, every single afternoon, are surely preventable. It’s a shambles it seems.

[redsnail]

South of France is bad at the moment. Staff shortages and weather means delays.

[Alsacienne]

U21231 on 8 July BSL-EDI spent a good 50 mins on hold after pushback - blamed on ATC overload in Northern France despite the planned 48 hr strike for 5 and 6 July being well and truly over. Grateful for the sensible and welcome decision to offer a free water service.

[Paul Lupp]

Delayed before push-back

BA LHR-SIN from T5 in 2019.... all ready to go on time but we were informed that we could not be pushed back due to a ground vehicle being in the way. It took an hour to resolve.... who on earth was allowed to leave a ground vehicle in the way of a large plane due to depart late evening on a scheduled long-haul flight? We never made up any time on the flight either leaving a tight connection to PEN with another airline at SIN... Jetstar, an Asian budget airline that at the time, I'd never heard of before. We (younger daughter and me) were treated better by Jetstar in "economy" than by BA in Premium Economy

[TURIN]

Originally Posted by Paul Lupp

BA LHR-SIN from T5 in 2019.... all ready to go on time but we were informed that we could not be pushed back due to a ground vehicle being in the way. It took an hour to resolve.... who on earth was allowed to leave a ground vehicle in the way of a large plane due to depart late evening on a scheduled long-haul flight? We never made up any time on the flight either leaving a tight connection to PEN with another airline at SIN... Jetstar, an Asian budget airline that at the time, I'd never heard of before. We (younger daughter and me) were treated better by Jetstar in "economy" than by BA in Premium Economy

During a busy turnaround there are a multitude of vehicles required to service the aircraft, catering, cleaning, maintenance, toilet and water servicing, baggage and freight loading, access steps etc.
All it takes is any one of those vehicles to fail, and you have a problem. It's not even possible to just push/pull them away, several will have hydraulic stabilisers extended or even be in a mode that will not allow movement without contact with the aircraft. In short, s*** happens, it's annoying, inconvenient and costly but it is hardly ever because someone just left a vehicle in the way.

[stoatsbrother]

Many years ago at Jackson Hole, we pushed back (or went forwards - no bridges then) to be told by the pilot that the runway was still a bit slippy, and was not sure he could abort takeoff, if needed, on the rather short runway (well known for GA aircraft runway excursions...) and the airport mu meter was out of action.

So we then spent a fun few minutes with him accelerating up the runway, slamming on the anchors and assessing the braking... and repeat...

Discretion seemed the better part of valour and we parked up and waited till a 757 landed and reported adequate braking, and off we went!

One occasion where I was very happy to leave late.