Originally Posted by
Thrifty Scotsman
Thanks for the replies.
There was no mention of weather or the atc action being a factor. The captain did say when we boarded, the aircraft had been at Heathrow the whole time, a tug had been attached to tow it to gate, then there was an issue with the tug, and there were no spare tugs (sounds dubious), which caused an extensive delay.
It can be true (as the no spare one) as if all the other tugs are assigned to aircraft pushbacks and other works then it can take a while to find and schedule an another one. In most airports (I bet in LHR the same) the tug operations has the lowest priority to move around the airports hence if the tug miss it slot then just have to wait a long time. Don't forget LHR not just running in max as the take off and landing slots but tugs, busses, de-icing, etc the same. The other day we had to wait for about 20-30 min to a bus turn up at a remote gate. And only one bus turned up so I believe the second and third part of the cabin had to wait that this bus goes back and pick them up too.