So as you may or may not know I spent the last 3 weeks travelling round Spain with my kind-of ex girlfriend (although now we're dropping the ex bit
) it was all fun, and nothing went wrong, explored loads of cities, survived driving on the wrong side of the road (it may be the right side but it's still wrong) survived shitty spanish drivers and survived a mosquito attack as well.
Anyway, it was all fine until the flight home from Madrid to Manchester. We turned up at the airport over an hour before the flight left, it would have been longer but we were,err, busy... we were flying home with Monarch who we hadn't heard of before so we weren't sure what to expect. Cheap flights to and from Spain though. Long walk to the terminal, then another long walk to the gate.
The flight started boarding a little late but we got on the plane (an airbus something) and there were free newspapers and radio and TV which we thought were nice and the plane seemed comfortable, the flight was quite empty and the air hostesses were attractive although they were all scousers...
10 minutes into the flight, the pilot says "cabin crew, code bravo" over the tannoy and we all looked at each other confused. Then one of the worst things you can hear on a plane "I am sorry to announce that one of the engines has failed" SHIT SHIT SHIT we are all thinking,
"However it is perfectly fine to fly this plane with one engine so we will be landing back at Madrid.
Plane lands, spanish passengers all clap (apparently they do this all the time, strange) we all get off and get back into the departure lounge. 2 hours pass, no announcement is given to us. It's 9.30pm at this point and I go to find out what's happening. the girl at the desk is quietly telling people that there is a plane from Alicante coming at 10 that we can catch or we can get a free night in a hotel and get the same flight home the next day. We just wanted to get home so we waited for the flight to arrive.
At 10:30 they finally announced the flight would leave at 11 and boarding would start shortly. It was then they realised that there wasn't enough room on the flight for everyone.
11 came and went.
at quarter past they read out 5 spanish names and asked them to come to the desk. They were to be left in the hotel in Madrid.
We all breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to board leaving the five girls to argue with the people on the desk. as we got to the plane we realised why there wasn't room. They'd redirected a flight from Alicante that was going straight to Manchester to Madrid instead and the poor bastards on the plane had been sitting waiting for us for over an hour.
Then as we all found random seats the crew realised they'd miscounted. There were two extra people on the plane. This was then followed by a massive argument with the two that were to be removed who refused to move. After another half hour the captain pleaded with them over the tannoy to get off the plane so we could all get home and they finally got off.
The plane headed for the runway.
What next we asked ourselves?
Well, the smell hit us first. An old woman had shit herself.
She was carried to the toilet sobbing and the plane had to sit there waiting for her to sort herself out. Finally, at 00:30, 5 and a half hours after we were initially meant to leave, the plane took off. Stinking of shit.
What was our compensation for this wait? A small can of fosters and a small glass of wine.
Bah.
Anyone got any idea what I can claim back from the airline?
Any other flying experiences to share?
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