flights cancel... flights get delayed - nature of the beast.
The hardest cancellations for people to accept are weather related delays or cancellations.
they look outside and see clear blue skies. Often the limit of their knowlege of meteorology is related to what they see out the window.
what they dont know is that 150 miles East of us there is a Squall line of thunderstorms extending from the great lakes region all the way down to San Antonio... and we arent going through that!
some of the strangest delay / cancellations
1. During my preflight inspection i noticed that all of the placards were missing from our Refuel Defuel panel. These "stickers" tell the fuelers what kind of fuel to put into the airplane, and include various limitations for pressure fueling PSI etc. By regulation the sticker has to be there. Maintenance didnt have any in stock and they had to be flown in from another location. Delay: 3 hours
2. Elderly woman evacuates bowels in forward galley upon deplaning. Regulation and company policy requires this be treated as a Hazmat / biohazard situation. Delay about 2 hours
3. Crew timeout is a big one! As flight crew, you are limited to 8 hours flying in a day. Even though this is the case, the company can have you "on duty" for upwards of 14 hours in a day. you can fly past the 8 hours... but you're wheels have to leave the ground before the 8th hour is reached.
occasionally, you might push back from the gate with 4 minutes to spare to this "time out" scenario... if you dont reach the runway in 3:59 you're done - thats it... go back to the gate or lose your license for breaking a Federal Law. this really pisses people off when you explain over the PA system "We have to go back because one or both of the pilots timed out"
4. Destination airport closing - usually a one runway airport. disabled aircraft on the runway or something.
5. once while taxiing out in rain we had the windshield wipers on. My windshield wiper stops mid whipe half way up the windscreen. This was not addressed in the manual... but there is a limitation of 140(ish) knots max speed with whipers un-stowed. so we had to taxi back and get it fixed... delay of a few hours.
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