Book 'em Danno! Murder One, Three Counts: Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear!

It couldn’t last! Things have been going so well on this trip but to a certain degree it all fell apart on Thursday albeit, our problems were but nothing compared to those of our fellow passengers!

We have been travelling to America and other parts of the world since 1989 and in all that time we have never had an experience like we did in Honolulu. We boarded our American Airlines Flight 162 on time, taxied out and lined up on the runway for take-off and instead of hearing the roar of the engines and feeling the sparkling acceleration to lift us into the wide blue yonder, we got the equivalent of “Houston we have a problem!” A return to stand was required for a minor technical issue.

What was supposedly a minor technical issue turned into a two hour wait on the aircraft before we got the message that the problem had been fixed and we pushed back once more for take-off. It didn’t happen as without very little explanation from the flight deck, we returned to stand once more and were asked to disembark with a voucher to spend $15 each on food. This amount didn’t go very far in the airport without a top up from us!

Back on the aircraft once more and pushed back heading for take-off – problem not fixed, disembark once again! Aircraft declared unserviceable and a new one would have to be found. Another two hour delay and another repeat of an unserviceable Airbus A321! That’s when the chaos really started!

I don’t know whether I felt sorry for the very limited number of American Airlines staff or not, dealing with 170+ frustrated travellers. What I did feel is that they did a classically pathetic job of keeping people informed even if they told us nothing! The flight crew had led this approach memorably by being conspicuously absent from sight during the whole 8 hour debacle! Boy that Captain did a poor job on customer relations. Those 4 stripes on his shirt carry amazing authority, nay reverence, with his passengers and regardless of problems with the aircraft, he fell very far short of what I would have expected!

We didn’t learn anything from AA. What we did learn was from other passengers and eventually. we took the option of seeking a hotel voucher from the airline and hence we spent the night in the Hilton Hawaiin Village where we arrived nine hours after first sitting on the aircraft. All we did was sleep and eat a £20 each continental breakfast before returning to the airport at 0700 this morning.

Many passengers had missed worldwide connections, one couple we heard to Australia and many taking multiple flights to get home to American cities for weddings, specialist appointments and to meet members of their families. A logistical nightmare in every sense but as I said earlier, this has caused an alteration to our plans but that had already happened for different reasons anyway!

We were supposed to be driving up to San Francisco today to stay for three nights with Ian, my nephew and his wife Georgia. However, they are having to move on Sunday and so whilst they were still happy for us to go, we decided that their lives would be so much easier if we pulled our trip and instead look forward to seeing them at Christmas when they return to the UK for a holiday. We will of course miss seeing them but we have done both San Francisco and Yosemite on more than one occasion and won’t lose any sleep over not seeing them this time!

So plans are changed and on landing at LAX we hope we can still pick up our rental car a day late and head north towards Death Valley. Hopefully American Airlines will compensate us for paid for but cancelled hotels plus other costs but I will pick up on that one when home. Friday evening rush hour is not a great time to be heading out of Los Angeles in a car but we have no choice. We might be lucky but have at least a three hour journey with the hope of arriving at our new hotel around 2300!

I’ve written this while sitting on an almost empty aircraft and the crew have been very attentive, presumably trying to make up for the debacle of yesterday. The Captain and his First Officer however continue to remain mysterious people in the flight deck!

We have remained relatively stress free and consider yesterday as “having an adventure!”

Hopefully an update tomorrow from Death Valley.