What's the most fun you've had in an irrops?
Jul 21, 2015, 4:03 pm
#16
Join Date: Jun 2012
Programs: BAEC Silver, L'Accor Gold, Hilton Silver, IHG Platinum
Posts: 328
EsherFlyer:
Would that have been 2010 / 2011 when I suffered the same at ZRH?
Would that have been 2010 / 2011 when I suffered the same at ZRH?
henkybaby:
I think the best IRROPS story ever is the one about staying in the lounge for 3 days... It was mentioned in a thread not that long ago. Eightblack I think wrote it.
I think the best IRROPS story ever is the one about staying in the lounge for 3 days... It was mentioned in a thread not that long ago. Eightblack I think wrote it.
1F
Jul 21, 2015, 4:06 pm
#17
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: SW London
Programs: BAEC Silver; Hilton Diamond;a miscellany of other hotel non-statuses
Posts: 3,607
Jul 21, 2015, 4:39 pm
#18
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Ireland
Programs: VS Silver, EK Gold, BA GGL/CCR
Posts: 487
Late 90's, (still worked for BA back then) and was stranded in CPT for 36 hours due to a tech aircraft while we waited for parts to come in on the next aircraft and then for the engineers to work their magic.
Headed out to the local aero club with the FO and hired a single engine Cessna. We spent about 90 minutes on an aerial tour of table mountain, the vinyards, cape point and back in via Robben Island.
The irrops Gods have since balanced that one out with an unscheduled trip to Gander, a diversion into Dublin (having just left there to get to LHR in the first place
and multiple changes of aircraft on a single JFK-LAX A321 transcon just after the new aircraft came online (while the AA engineers were getting to grips with the teething problems on the A321.)
Headed out to the local aero club with the FO and hired a single engine Cessna. We spent about 90 minutes on an aerial tour of table mountain, the vinyards, cape point and back in via Robben Island.
The irrops Gods have since balanced that one out with an unscheduled trip to Gander, a diversion into Dublin (having just left there to get to LHR in the first place
and multiple changes of aircraft on a single JFK-LAX A321 transcon just after the new aircraft came online (while the AA engineers were getting to grips with the teething problems on the A321.)
Jul 21, 2015, 4:51 pm
#19
Join Date: Jun 2009
Programs: BA GGL/GfL; Hilton Diamond; Marriott Ambassador; IHG Diamond;
Posts: 263
Not exactly "fun", but I had one of my more interesting irrop experiences recently. CDG-LHR Y booked to return from a work trip and connect to the first leg of a redemption LHR-BOS-LHR in WT for personal trip, therefore separate PNRs. Knew there could be trouble if I missed the connection, so had booked the 16:50 departure for CDG-LHR scheduled to arrive at 17:00, with plenty of time to connect to the last BOS departure at 19:45.
Two days before flight find out French ATC are threatening strike, but BA get prepared for it well by swapping in a 773 in place of the 320 that was originally scheduled, and stick with it even after the strike is called off the day prior. I am mighty pleased as I have snagged a WT+ seat on the 773 at OLCI.
I arrive at CDG and there's both bad news and good news. Flight is delayed from 16:50 to 17:45 now, but I've been op-upped to "CE" at check-in. All in all, I think to myself, not too shabby, as it should still give me a very comfortable hour and 45 mins to connect, after a not too uncomfortable 45 min flight in a CW flat-bed. We board, I start up a movie on IFES and wait for pushback. At 17:30, captain comes on the PA to announce that we have a problem. It turns out, in their infinite wisdom, BA have sent an aircraft they don't normally operate to CDG without making sure they had the right engineering cover (ie no engineer at CDG qualified to perform the pre-departure check on a 777). In short, we are stuck at CDG. They are going to try to find other options, but as a last resort plan to send an engineer over on the next flight out, which will mean we will now arrive at LHR at 20:30, which in turn means I would miss my BOS connection. I check the LHR-BOS flight status, and it looks like it has now been delayed to 20:15, which still doesn't help 
.
At 17:50 captain says no luck yet, still trying to find a local alternative to perform the required check. I check the BA app which tells me that the 18:00 scheduled BA departure CDG-LHR (operated by a 320) is also running late, and is now expected to depart at 18:30, so I figure flat-bed or not, if I manage to get on that flight I might be able to catch my BOS flight. I head over to the CSD, and queue up behind about a dozen other passengers trying to get off or switch to the other flight. After much haggling and explaining my situation, CSD agrees to move me along with 2 other pax as that's all the room they have remaining on the other flight. We race across to the other flight, they give me another CE boarding pass
, and I get on board. We push back at 18:45, and with the usual holding delay at LHR finally land at about 19:20. The LHR-BOS flight has now been pushed back to 21:00, and by the time I get through flight connections it is now showing a 21:30 departure. Relieved, I enjoy a shower and dinner at the lounge and saunter over to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Get on board finally at 21:15, and captain comes on PA to greet us.
"Ladies and gents, .... our apologies for the rolling delays we've had to our departure this evening. Unfortunately, we were awaiting the arrival of this aircraft from (wait for it ...) Paris".
Two days before flight find out French ATC are threatening strike, but BA get prepared for it well by swapping in a 773 in place of the 320 that was originally scheduled, and stick with it even after the strike is called off the day prior. I am mighty pleased as I have snagged a WT+ seat on the 773 at OLCI.
I arrive at CDG and there's both bad news and good news. Flight is delayed from 16:50 to 17:45 now, but I've been op-upped to "CE" at check-in. All in all, I think to myself, not too shabby, as it should still give me a very comfortable hour and 45 mins to connect, after a not too uncomfortable 45 min flight in a CW flat-bed. We board, I start up a movie on IFES and wait for pushback. At 17:30, captain comes on the PA to announce that we have a problem. It turns out, in their infinite wisdom, BA have sent an aircraft they don't normally operate to CDG without making sure they had the right engineering cover (ie no engineer at CDG qualified to perform the pre-departure check on a 777). In short, we are stuck at CDG
. They are going to try to find other options, but as a last resort plan to send an engineer over on the next flight out, which will mean we will now arrive at LHR at 20:30, which in turn means I would miss my BOS connection. I check the LHR-BOS flight status, and it looks like it has now been delayed to 20:15, which still doesn't help .At 17:50 captain says no luck yet, still trying to find a local alternative to perform the required check. I check the BA app which tells me that the 18:00 scheduled BA departure CDG-LHR (operated by a 320) is also running late, and is now expected to depart at 18:30, so I figure flat-bed or not, if I manage to get on that flight I might be able to catch my BOS flight. I head over to the CSD, and queue up behind about a dozen other passengers trying to get off or switch to the other flight. After much haggling and explaining my situation, CSD agrees to move me along with 2 other pax as that's all the room they have remaining on the other flight. We race across to the other flight, they give me another CE boarding pass
, and I get on board. We push back at 18:45, and with the usual holding delay at LHR finally land at about 19:20. The LHR-BOS flight has now been pushed back to 21:00, and by the time I get through flight connections it is now showing a 21:30 departure. Relieved, I enjoy a shower and dinner at the lounge and saunter over to the gate with plenty of time to spare. Get on board finally at 21:15, and captain comes on PA to greet us."Ladies and gents, .... our apologies for the rolling delays we've had to our departure this evening. Unfortunately, we were awaiting the arrival of this aircraft from (wait for it ...) Paris".
Last edited by flyingnomad; Jul 21, 2015 at 4:57 pm
Jul 21, 2015, 5:22 pm
#20
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Wassenaar, NL
Programs: BAEC
Posts: 709
What a nice topic.
OK, this was is a little bit personal so if you're easily nauseated by any personal stuff I suggest you skip to the next post.....
I've been lucky so far in that I haven't had too many significant IRROPS but my most memorable IRROPs was also in Houston (sadly not Galveston which I like too Louise, its so quirky and you can't walk along the beach without having Glenn Campbell in your head!)
I was actually on another airline (
) when the aircraft went tech at pushback. I was sat next to an off duty employee of the airline and we got chatting, as strangers do when in "adversity", which passed the time. It eventually became clear we were going nowhere after he went to speak to his colleagues in the cockpit to get the details. The decision was made to unload us back into the terminal.
Not long after, a decision to further postpone the flight was taken with no new departure time on offer. There was an excellent response from ground staff and most of us were allocated to a nearby airport hotel very quickly (I think it was a Hilton Garden Inn) and they were also busy arranging transport to the hotel.
Given I'd already had a glass or two of cheap fizz on board and was travelling HBO, I impulsively accepted an invitation from my seat neighbour to get a cab to our hotel and join him for dinner. It turned out to be a very memorable evening - Houston isn't exotic, the food was nothing special and the hotel wasn't luxurious (certainly not Bali!!) but it was all just lovely.
The next day, after an unplanned and welcome free morning doing not much apart from emailing work whilst lounging around in the sun (no guilt whatsoever
), we got news of the new flight time and headed back to the airport and headed home to AMS. To this day I still can't shake him off...
OK, that's enough of the whole touchy-feely sharing crap. I have sick bags if anyone needs one.
OK, this was is a little bit personal so if you're easily nauseated by any personal stuff I suggest you skip to the next post.....
I've been lucky so far in that I haven't had too many significant IRROPS but my most memorable IRROPs was also in Houston (sadly not Galveston which I like too Louise, its so quirky and you can't walk along the beach without having Glenn Campbell in your head!)
I was actually on another airline (
) when the aircraft went tech at pushback. I was sat next to an off duty employee of the airline and we got chatting, as strangers do when in "adversity", which passed the time. It eventually became clear we were going nowhere after he went to speak to his colleagues in the cockpit to get the details. The decision was made to unload us back into the terminal. Not long after, a decision to further postpone the flight was taken with no new departure time on offer. There was an excellent response from ground staff and most of us were allocated to a nearby airport hotel very quickly (I think it was a Hilton Garden Inn) and they were also busy arranging transport to the hotel.
Given I'd already had a glass or two of cheap fizz on board and was travelling HBO, I impulsively accepted an invitation from my seat neighbour to get a cab to our hotel and join him for dinner. It turned out to be a very memorable evening - Houston isn't exotic, the food was nothing special and the hotel wasn't luxurious (certainly not Bali!!) but it was all just lovely.
The next day, after an unplanned and welcome free morning doing not much apart from emailing work whilst lounging around in the sun (no guilt whatsoever
), we got news of the new flight time and headed back to the airport and headed home to AMS. To this day I still can't shake him off...OK, that's enough of the whole touchy-feely sharing crap. I have sick bags if anyone needs one.
Jul 21, 2015, 5:37 pm
#21
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: LBA
Posts: 358
Must be at least 30 years ago when I was working in Saudi Arabia. Was flying from Dhahran to Istanbul via Amman for a weeks holiday.
RJ flight from DHA to AMM went fine but connecting flight to IST on TK was cancelled. No flight to IST for two days - TK put me up in a very nice hotel and paid for my car hire so that I could do some sight seeing.
Went to Madaba to see the mosaics then down to the Dead Sea for a 'float'. Happy memories.
RJ flight from DHA to AMM went fine but connecting flight to IST on TK was cancelled. No flight to IST for two days - TK put me up in a very nice hotel and paid for my car hire so that I could do some sight seeing.
Went to Madaba to see the mosaics then down to the Dead Sea for a 'float'. Happy memories.
Jul 21, 2015, 5:42 pm
#22
Join Date: May 2010
Location: YLMQ
Programs: QF Gold, WY Gold
Posts: 682
The best we've had was when I left the Middle East for good with my family and work booked us WY J MCT-DXB and CX J from DXB-HKG-SYD. I wanted a stopover in HKG en-route but with work travel that was too complicated and not permitted... (anyone who has worked in the M.E will know how challenging simple things can be).
Just prior to take off from MCT I saw that our DXB-HKG leg was delayed and we'd miss the HKG-SYD flight, so on arrival at DXB I went to the transfer desk and managed to negotiate a 24 hour stay and full night in a hotel at HKG courtesy of CX. The irrops worked in our favour that time.
I've had bad ones, like making a silly decision to fly Cebu Pacific air from HKG-MNL and being delayed 8 hours without any information (the handling agent to be fair said that they only know once the aircraft enters HKG airspace, before that point, they can't even get through on the phone to the Philippines).
Another bad one was when i'd just flown MIA-JFK-ICN-CEB and was called with new flight details to fly CEB-DVO-SIN-LHR/LGW-BGI (round the world in 72 hours), anyway the SIN-LHR was late, so arrived with a misconnect and got routed LHR-MIA-BGI and misconnected again in MIA... Was totally screwed by the time I arrived.
Just prior to take off from MCT I saw that our DXB-HKG leg was delayed and we'd miss the HKG-SYD flight, so on arrival at DXB I went to the transfer desk and managed to negotiate a 24 hour stay and full night in a hotel at HKG courtesy of CX. The irrops worked in our favour that time.
I've had bad ones, like making a silly decision to fly Cebu Pacific air from HKG-MNL and being delayed 8 hours without any information (the handling agent to be fair said that they only know once the aircraft enters HKG airspace, before that point, they can't even get through on the phone to the Philippines).
Another bad one was when i'd just flown MIA-JFK-ICN-CEB and was called with new flight details to fly CEB-DVO-SIN-LHR/LGW-BGI (round the world in 72 hours), anyway the SIN-LHR was late, so arrived with a misconnect and got routed LHR-MIA-BGI and misconnected again in MIA... Was totally screwed by the time I arrived.
Jul 21, 2015, 6:55 pm
#24
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jan 2009
Programs: Battleaxe Alliance
Posts: 22,127
This thread was originally posted in BA forum but as it is not specific to BA, it has been moved to TravelBuzz.
In addition, the title has been changed to something that will make more sense to those who are not a frequent visitor to the BA forum.
LTN Phobia
Moderator: BA forum
In addition, the title has been changed to something that will make more sense to those who are not a frequent visitor to the BA forum.
LTN Phobia
Moderator: BA forum
Jul 21, 2015, 8:56 pm
#25
Join Date: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,797
Jul 22, 2015, 2:15 am
#27
Join Date: Jul 2010
Posts: 44
I'm going to describe this one as different rather than fun but I think it's a good story!
About 5 years ago my wife (future at that point) and I and a couple of our friends were on a trip round New Zealand. We needed to get from Hokitika on the South Island west coast to Wellington so decided to fly internal Air NZ via Christchurch. We waited in Hokitika airport for the inbound from Christchurch but due to poor weather it couldn't make it in and had to return. Rather than leaving us stuck Air NZ decided to put on an airline replacement bus service over the mountain to Christchurch. We had a nice coach for half the way to be turfed out at the top of the mountain to get on the "bus" coming the other way to go back down the other side. Turns out that was a minibus with a trailer for luggage which the driver insisted on flinging round the downhill corners at speed. In the end managed to get a flight out of Christchurch some hours later to Wellington.
At the time I probably couldn't have described it as fun but looking back it was certainly an experience and made the trip more memorable! I never imagined I'd see an airline version of a rail replacement bus service!
About 5 years ago my wife (future at that point) and I and a couple of our friends were on a trip round New Zealand. We needed to get from Hokitika on the South Island west coast to Wellington so decided to fly internal Air NZ via Christchurch. We waited in Hokitika airport for the inbound from Christchurch but due to poor weather it couldn't make it in and had to return. Rather than leaving us stuck Air NZ decided to put on an airline replacement bus service over the mountain to Christchurch. We had a nice coach for half the way to be turfed out at the top of the mountain to get on the "bus" coming the other way to go back down the other side. Turns out that was a minibus with a trailer for luggage which the driver insisted on flinging round the downhill corners at speed. In the end managed to get a flight out of Christchurch some hours later to Wellington.
At the time I probably couldn't have described it as fun but looking back it was certainly an experience and made the trip more memorable! I never imagined I'd see an airline version of a rail replacement bus service!
Jul 22, 2015, 5:58 am
#28
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: London, UK
Programs: BA Executive Club (Silver), Le Club Accor (Silver)
Posts: 680
I booked a very cheap ($100) PHL-DFW return on US last January to meet friends in Dallas. Arriving at PHL for the 18:30 flight, I noticed it was cancelled due to storms in Dallas. The nice lady at the US Preferred desk said she could book me onto any flight the next day, but I thought that was boring. I asked if I could connect and overnight via somewhere else, and she smiled and said "sure - go check the departures screen and see where you want to go". So after a few minutes, I came back armed with a few options and asked if first class upgrades (complimentary with my status) were available on any of them. In the end, I went PHL-BNA that evening and had a great night out in Nashville, before continuing on to Dallas the next morning (both first class).
Jul 22, 2015, 8:12 am
#29
formerly known as Tad's Broiled Steaks
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 6,412
My DEN-NRT 787 flight made an emergency landing in SEA (how convenient). Met up with some friends there for a couple of days. UA covered a night's hotel, a ticket back home and gave ff miles for the entire flight.
Oh, and my delayed UL flight out of CMB. Granted, the airport is quite far from the city, but I did meet a Swiss woman on the train from Kandy that day...
This is in contrast to my 2005 Air Asia MFM-KUL flight, when I spent 17 hours post-security in Macao.
Oh, and my delayed UL flight out of CMB. Granted, the airport is quite far from the city, but I did meet a Swiss woman on the train from Kandy that day...
This is in contrast to my 2005 Air Asia MFM-KUL flight, when I spent 17 hours post-security in Macao.
Last edited by BuildingMyBento; Jul 22, 2015 at 10:59 pm
Jul 22, 2015, 8:20 am
#30
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Atherton, CA
Programs: UA 1K, AA EXP; Owner, Green Bay Packers
Posts: 21,690
I was staying at Club Med in Moorea, Tahiti, and the now defunct French Air Outre Mer had a broken plane. I got $800 plus 3 payed days at the resort plus put on a much more comfortable AF flight back to LAX since the AOM flights only ran 3x/week and they had to accommodate hundreds of us.
Pure misery.
Pure misery.