Bizarre delay AMS-IAH?
 

Hi,

Had an unusual experience last week flying AMS-IAH, and wondering if anyone has any thoughts:

Doors closed; about 10 minutes after that we were told we were waiting on some "paperwork" but that we should be moving shortly.

50 more minutes later they re-seated a few passengers from bizfirst into e+, meanwhile telling us "Sorry about that-- there was a contracts issue. Long story... but we're on our way now!", and we finally pushed back, an hour behind schedule.

Any idea what this was about?

Forgive me if there's a "unusual delays" thread I've missed.

I had a similar experience AMS-IAD on June 22. We were waiting for push-back "in a few minutes" for over 30 mins. Pilot mumbled something about "paperwork".

Prolly people seated in crew rest seats?

That's correct.

I am booked a few flight on AMS_IAH and back in Business, please tell me what seat are the crew seat before I end up in eco plus ;)

Interesting! What's the setup like where you can accidentally seat someone in a crew rest seat? Shouldn't the booking systems prevent that somehow? (And why did it take an hour to resolve it?)

@eb777: It looked like they took people from the rearmost row of BizFirst (on a 777), but I'm not certain.

Is that flight typically full in C? Just curious - I would assume they would move non-revs first regardless of where they were sitting, right? I would be horrified if I was on the plane in C and downgraded to either the last of the E+ seats or all the way back to E- (being 6'4").

very often fully booked in C, Since a while a 777, used to be 767-400

I think something similar almost happened on my MUC-EWR flight the other day. German GA came on board and asked the crew about the empty BF, clearly looking to upgrade somebody. Crew pointed out it was the pilot rest seat, the GA looked confused and wandered off.

Also (according to a GA at EWR when refusing to clear my GPU) additional crew can show up at T-15 and demand space positive seats, so perhaps the GA had jumped the gun on clearing upgrades.

not entirely true. a pilot or flight attendant cant just show up and say put me on the plane. crew scheduling will book them, and then if seats were already given away, the only booking will be in Y, then its up to the gate agent to make any necessary adjustments.