Why rush people on a plane whilst there is still a technical check to be completed?

[ozmille]

Funny thing happened last week. Arrived in Bangkok from Sydney on BA10. As always I went to the QP for a cold drink before going on to AY95 to Helsinki. When the final boarding call for the flight was announced I made my way to the flight and in the terminal there were already people running arround rushing people to the aircraft as "it is leaving soon". Sat down in my seat with a champagne and we were advised by the captain that they were still having a technical check which would take at least another 45 minutes to be completed. We left an hour and a half later which meant that I missed my connection in Helsinki and had to wait for 8 hours before flying on to Brussels (used that time to go and explore Helsinki which was nice). So why were they rushing people on board whilst they were aware that the check would take at least 45 minutes. I could have taken a shower in that time.

 

[Boris spatsky]

Best guess is that they thought it would be fixable by normal departure time, hence get pax on at same time to meet normal dep time. Probably proved to be a bit harder with engineers etc.

That's aviation for you. Getting passengers on can take forever - easier to get them on and wait a bit than leave them in the lounge and get delayed by them later on.

 

[JohnK]

Re: Why rush people on a plane whilst there is still a technical check to be complete

This has happened to me on domestic flights more times than I care to remember. Rush to board the passengers and then sit and wait and wait for checks to be completed, wait for the paperwork to arrive, wait for connecting passengers etc.

Personally I do not like to sit in an aircraft longer than is necessary.

 

[mannej]

Re: Why rush people on a plane whilst there is still a technical check to be complete

Perhaps it had something to do with not missing a take off slot?