What's the most absurd excuse you've ever heard?
 

I was reading through old posts (because my job is super slow tonight) and saw this old post (2001-ish) about silly excuses airlines give for delays, lost/damaged luggage, etc. Just wondering if anyone out there has any absurd excuses they'd like to share. Sorry if I'm annoying anyone with this post!

This is not a silly excuse, but not a common reason for delays either. I was just about to board a flight when they announced that the operator of the jetway had smashed the jetway into the open door of the plane. The door of the plane was damaged so badly that it wouldn't close, so the flight was delayed because they had to bring out a new plane. That was a new one on me.

"You can't move your seat !!"(from one ailse seat to another) because it will upset the balance of the plane ( 767 ! )

Announcment: "We are currently flying at 39,000 feet and the outside tempertaure is minus 47 degrees centrigrade"

Fellow passenger: "Guess I'll skip my walk !"

Funny stuff!

After a long flight from Chicago, with a long layover in Miami, we deplaned in Rio de Janeiro to catch another flight to our final destination, Buenos Aires. Our flights from Miami onward were on Varig Airlines.
The Rio airport loudspeakers began making announcements that sounded urgent in one language after another. When they got to English, the announcer said: "Varig Airlines is now on strike. Please go home."
My husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. Please go home?

Everything turned out OK. We got out on another airline.

Just recently I was taking a short flight on a regional jet. We were delayed over 45 minutes because the co-pilot couldn't be found. They had been paging him over and over but with no response. Finally he showed up, and we were on our way. Many speculations as to what he had been doing in the interim. LOL

<b>bobbysue</b>,

This happens more often then you think, but not for the reasons you may suspect. :-)

Pilots and flight attendants contracts call for allowed max time to fly and a very much adhered to off time. If the pilots or FA's plane was late during their last scheduled working hours, everything gets pushed back just to give them the required off time.

In most cases the gate agents will be able to see that on the airline computer and adjust the departure to reflect this, but on occasion, especially if the other flight was the last flight the night before, the info was not entered into the system, so the GA is just as clueless as everybody waiting to board. I've seen this happen few times.

Last time it was in Tampa with AA FAs. The GA started paging the FAs, and kept on paging for about 30 or so minutes. To the waiting passengers it became a joke. Finally the captain came out and after a short conversation with the GA and some more keyboard dance on the computer, they decided to call operations in Dallas. Only then they were informed that the crew was &quot;illegal&quot; for another 45 minutes or so, which meant that they can't leave the hotel till then. Their flight the night before was about 1.5 hours late. Since Tampa is not a AA hub and they do not have &quot;standby&quot; FAs for such situation, AA had no other option. The GA finally announced what was going on and that the flight will be delayed for about an hour more.

In a perfect corporate world this should have never happened. Not the delay, as there was not much that AA could do about it, but the missing information is not right, but airline business is very unique when it comes to scheduling, keeping crews legal, weather/mechanical problems, etc., that it's almost inevitable to avoid an occasional hiccup like what you described.

I don't know for sure that this was the same kind of situation, but I also know that if a pilot and/or FA showed up 1/2 late for their flight without an excuse, there would be some serious consequences.

My gf is a FA and believe me, as much as she loves the job she also respects the rules. She lives in Pittsburgh but is based out of Chicago, which means she needs to fly to/from her job. Since AA is very limited on the PIT-ORD route, she does miss the &quot;free&quot; flights on occasion, still she can get on other airlines for &quot;free&quot;, but it's more limited. If she sees there is no possibility, she does buy, yes, BUY a USAir ticket, albeit at a very discounted industry fare, just so she won't have to do the non-rev standby game and be late for work. According to her that is one mark on your record you don't want to have if you want to stay employed.

In the early '90s, I had a flight out of LAX on Easter weekend. We sat on the plane for two hours because American forgot to schedule a co-pilot. They actually admitted this.

But the periodic updates over the cabin speakers were fun: &quot;Uh, this is your captain. We have contacted a co-pilot who can accompany us on our flight. I understand he's one the 101, so if traffic is light, we should be under way soon.&quot;

Last weekend my UA flight from John Wayne to Denver was finally cancelled after several hours of delays. The pilot actually admitted that the problem was caused by the flight crew that handled the plane the nigh before doing the equivalant of leaving your headlights on and both batteries were dead. it also caused hydrolic fluid to leak somehow. I think I would have preferred to know less about the human error part...left me wondering what else the dufus might have forgotten to do to some other plane.

We were all seated ready for take off and they couldn't get the door shut...

Hey, Wednesday, did you see my post? I wonder if the same happened on your plane.... :-)