Well this has never happened to me before - and I don't like it.

[Timeforatincture]

19:30 flight from Lanzarote ponced about for ages on the tarmac then threw us all off at 23:30. No offer of accommodation or any indication of time of replacement flight. At least a cafe is open (poor sod at the till) and we had a bottle of gin. You had this?

What a ridiculous comment. I've travelled a lot and I still get cheap flights to Europe.

We simply do not know if we will take off as provisionally scheduled yet.

Why are OP and Glitter acting as though the airline has done this on purpose??

Why do some posters lack comprehension? @HopingForSomeSunshineSoon

I understand, I was stuck with a 6 year old when the volcano went off, we had to find last minute, accomodation, we'd travelled around 50 miles to airport, then had to wait for coaches for hours and hours, and then be driven across Europe. All with no-one having a fucking clue what was happening, no clean clothes, no certainty of anything... I've been there.

But it's just when PP say things like, "if they hadn't put too much weight/taken too long to load / crew moved and then went over hours" it makes it sound like you think it the airline deliberately decided to do those things 🤷‍♀️

They DO sound like they think ye airlines over loaded it in purpose, or took too long to load it 🤷‍♀️

There was too much weight, they told us that. So what was so heavy when the plane wasn't full and baggage limits are in place?

They're old enough to be doing school revision work unsupervised however we are sitting with them. They don't need micromanagement despite what some people on this site would think 😉

Something that's none of your business perhaps? Who knows, maybe they were repatriating a deceased person or carrying some other essential item. They also might have changed the route, based on your comment about the mountain, there will be different weight limits for different ascents. Sometimes one issue leads to others and it all snowballs.

We got delayed in Porto by 7 hours and had to change our connecting flight home. We had used dohop so they paid for the flight change. And easy jet stumped up the EU compensation with no hassle.

They said it was too heavy to fly toward the mountain. They weren't planning on going over the mountain in the first place. So it wasn't over loaded.

But even so, they didn't overload it on purpose.

If you booked the flight long enough ago that it was really cheap, you can find you get a profit on the compensation as they pay current day's price.

How patronising. They've been awake all night in a cold airport with children, with no information coming until just now about when their flight might depart. That's their perspective.

It's really not patronising. Keeping perspective is really useful in stressful situations, I speak from experience.

Well, you can get angry and annoyed and frustrated.

Or you could get a bit more zen, realising that none of the above will change the situation. Yes, it's crap, but do whatever you can to get through it without the stress!

I've had a fair few unplanned delays. We flew to Florida via New York once, got stuck at JFK for 15 hours due to storms. We just got in with it.

They just mean it was too heavy to take off in a direction that wasn’t part of the original flight plan. It’s possible that aircraft type would never have been able to do that. I suspect it’s a communications fail and what they were trying to say was “you can probably see other aircraft taking off, but they are lighter than us, that’s what they have that option”.

It will be interesting to understand when you get back whether they genuinely could not put you in hotel. I can’t imagine Lanzarote accommodation is full up in February. I guess maybe some hotels are totally closed though.

The care & assistance obligation is mandatory even if the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances. You could in theory claim compensation from them for the failure to do that. It would not be the fixed sum but you might get something to reflect the discomfort and inconvenience.

It's not only the being up all night, cold, hungry etc. It's the worry about getting home, school and work on Monday etc.
Am now invested in your thread and the impromptu Mumsnet meetup!
Hope you get back without any more delays.

Good you booked hotel. What a horrendous delay and not even getting a hotel

A long (long) time ago I used to spend frequent times in the Channel Islands. Just after Christmas I was due to fly back to Exeter for a very important family birthday. This involved a simple car journey from Exeter to Norfolk - ok not quite that simple given the west/ east road structures, hence setting out early. A long trip, but generally two straight lines and at a steady pace a 10am flight meant I would make it by 4pm ish.

Fog on the islands meant the 10am flight was delayed. In the end it took off…..fog then at Exeter meant we would have to land at Southampton, then a coach to Exeter. Well we landed at…..Heathrow which meant the tube into London and the train back out from Waterloo to Exeter at about 5pm. I finally picked my car up at Exeter, but it broke down on the A303 near Stonehenge around 11pm. The AA came out, replaced a lead to the battery in the swirling fog, and I’m on my way. No mobile phones then so I find a phone box in a small village to call my hosts but the party is in full swing so they don’t hear the ring.

Finding my way across country from memory was easy enough, (no Sat Nav then) but it’s a long journey and I’m getting very tired, starting to nod off, doing the stretchy faced thing to try to stay awake. I’m not on any motorway and those days no coffee shops or hot drinks at service stations. Somewhere near Wellingborough there is an accident and diversion signs scattered travellers out into the dark country lanes into thickening fog spreading up country. Eventually I’m on my own, no tail lights to follow, trying to gauge where I am. After more than an hour I’ve travelled north towards Rutland Water and now need to travel due east crossing The Fens - and even thicker fog and drainage ditches with no barriers between the road.

About 15 miles from my destination I’m getting too tired, but it’s a case of ”well, im nearly there now, just bash on”. I’m starting to hallucinate, the road is at right angles to the position of the car and it’s just white lines in the lights spinning away. I manage to finally arrive and it’s about 5am and my brother is the last one up, just heading upstairs to bed. I’ve been from Guernsey to Heathrow back to Exeter then a drive across country to near Sandringham taking the best part of a day to do so.

The following Spring I was flying with the same small airline when the cockpit was struck by lightning and it blew one of the window shields half off.

What on earth are you talking about? Compensation and flight price are not linked.

@HotCrossBunplease - we called 12 hotels after midnight this morning. It's still half term, try getting multiple rooms last minute after midnight.

You just email in and explain, OP has plenty of time for this admin.

I had to email in a fair few times, there's no point stressing, because you can't change the situation.

Yes, we all cope differently with being tired and delayed. But just...go with it. Yes it boring as all fuck, yes it's annoying,but .. ehhhh. Nobody is dead.

The Tenerife plane crash was pilot error though. Yes it was in foggy conditions, but it was down to less than clear communication between pilot and ATC and the arrogance of the KLM pilot pushing ahead with take off before he had clearance and before the other plane had cleared the runway.