serfty

I'm waiting in AKL for boarding to commence for my Air NZ flight to MEL. This has been delayed 40 minutes as, on the inbound flight from Nandi, luggage had been checked containing Melons.

Apparently, they exploded while in flight and the hold of the A320 now has to be scrubbed before luggage can be loaded!

That's a completely new one on me ...

Has anyone else had something similar and/or as wierd delay their flight significantly.

Gator11

My strangest delay reason was chickens loose in the cargo hold. They somehow escaped and so they had to be rounded up before the flight could continue. I don't remember how long the delay was, but we ended up leaving at the same time as the next scheduled flight.

Mudfish

Well, it wasn't reason for delay on a passenger flight, but in my college days I worked for an air freight company (Flying Tigers). We had a 747 come in one night with a tiger loose in the main cargo deck. Made for an interesting evening.

DoubleJ

Gave new meaning to the name of your air freight company.

Was on a flight NRT-PDX that was delayed as someone aboard complained of smelling "smoke". We had to wait as ground personnel came onboard and tried to track down the source. They never found it, but I suspect it was the package of soy sauce-covered rice crackers that a nearby passenger has opened up and started to snack on.

Kate_Canuck

Wasn't there a story on Flyertalk in the past year about someone hearing an announcement that passengers' baggage on a flight was delayed because they'd found that the cargo hold was infested with - I can't remember exactly but it was buggy, e.g. fleas, lice, bed bugs or something. I remember thinking that, if I heard that news about my luggage, my response would have been "No thanks, you can keep my luggage".

Kiwi Flyer

I've had a flight delay due to exploding fruit before.

eastwest

Last year, someone checked a box containing a fresh moose head in Nome and by the time it arrived in Anchorage, it had leaked blood all over the front cargo hold. It took a while to get that all cleaned up!

The guy on my crew who was unloading the front cargo pit got the moose blood all over his arm, leaned out of the door, held up his arm and started screaming. As his ramp lead...I nearly had a heart attack!

KPChicago

This one qualifies as a mechanical but...

Summer 1985 - Pre-merger US CLT-PIT-BDL

Boarded early for PIT-BDL. Was reading the sunday funnies when I heard a chorus of clicks. Twasnt crickets.

All the oxygen masks had deployed. But we were still at the gate. We were de-boarded and waited for them to find us another plane.

Helena Handbaskets

Evidently some Air NZ agents had missed the recent Air NZ corporate memo:

"AirNZ personnel stationed in the United States will henceforth no longer check passengers' melons, as this duty has been ceded to the TSA."

serfty

Actually; after making my way back to the gate an announcement was made that it wasn't exploding Melons but Exploding Mangoes!

By the time we boarded I was still wondering how mangoes could actually explode. Melons, possibly, but mangoes?

All became clear with the Pilot's pre-flight announcement that it was in fact jars of pickled mangoes that had indeed exploded and it was a corrosive pickling fluid that had leaked out into the hold, necessitating cleanup before it damaged the aircraft.

On a more mundane note, we waited another 40 minutes after boarding while the passenger luggage was loaded

To compound the delays, smoke from bush fires affecting airport visibility caused further delays with a 20 minute holding pattern being necessary before landing at MEL.

nyc123zoe55

Yes, I know that was the problem to began with. But, we were delayed because a passenger "had an accident in a seat" and that seat had to be replaced before we could leave ATL because the plane was not coming back to ATL for the rest of the day.