An NZPA report says that bemused passengers on board an Air New Zealand flight were told take-off would be delayed while the pilots rushed to get takeaways for their dinner.
Passengers on flight NZ553 from Auckland to Christchurch late last week were told the pilot and co-pilot had not had their dinner and they would try to order takeaways to speed things up, The New Zealand Herald reported.
They were legally entitled to a meal and their in-flight dinner had gone missing, the crew said.
The flight was due to leave at 7.30pm but did not take off until around 8pm and arrived at 9.05pm instead of the scheduled time of 8.40pm, passengers said.
One passenger told the Herald most people aboard joked about it rather than being annoyed. “They were laughing.
Someone said, “This just adds to my Mickey Mouse day”. People were kind of stoic. It became a standing joke with passengers.
“The pilot said, ‘By law we need a break.’ ‘I’ll try and keep it short by getting takeaways’ and we actually saw him get off the plane and walk back into the terminal.”
Air New Zealand spokeswoman Andrea Dale said the pilots were already running 13 minutes late from another flight due to service delays and under Civil Aviation Authority rules they were required to take a break.
“It’s a safety thing.” “The flight arrived 29 minutes late”, she said.
Report by The Mole
