32 hour trip to No-where
Passengers on a Swiss Condor airliner endured a mind-numbing, 32-hour flight to nowhere after a flight to Greece was forced to turn around and return home following multiple failed trips. They left embarking on what was supposed to be a routine 1,198-mile flight from Zurich to Heraklion, Greece. Maybe there was an unheeded warning, the plane left 30 minutes late, but the flight appeared to be going swimmingly. After a short two hours, the plane began its initial descent to the idyllic Greek isle. Unfortunately, the aircraft’s landing was hampered by powerful winds, which forced it to circle around for a prolonged period before the pilot decided to divert to Athens and refuel: Three hours after they’d originally departed Zurich. Around two and a half hours later, (5.5 hours) the crew made a second attempt to ferry the 137 passengers to Heraklion, only to be boomeranged yet again.
The weather conditions were still quite severe. After circling around again, they decided to divert to Kos, a nearby Greek island, to refuel, landing at 3:28 p.m. after a 1.5-hour flight. Condor reps said that “due to extreme weather conditions and strong winds, takeoffs and landings at Heraklion Airport were only possible to a limited extent.” They reportedly touched down at 6:04 after an approximately one-hour flight — a whopping 11 hours after they’d initially left Zurich. The following day at 9 a.m., the crew decided to make one last attempt to get to Crete, but found themselves in a holding pattern yet again due to the wind — like de ja flew. Again, they were forced to divert to Athens, whereupon the crew decided to call it quits and fly back to Zurich, arriving a full 32 hours after their initial departure. During the fruitless journey, they had reportedly landed and took off a total of five different times. To make matters worse, flyers were only given a glass of water and nothing else during the whole flight while many passengers vomited during the approaches to Heraklion because of the powerful winds.
Upon arriving at Thessaloniki, meanwhile, flyers were forced to float their own hotel rooms, although they are entitled to reimbursement under European aviation guidelines. “With strong winds, take-offs and landings at Heraklion Airport on Crete were only possible to a limited extent,” Condor said. Passengers also claimed they had to pay for their own hotels, per the outlet, and upon landing in Athens for the second time, were given the opportunity to disembark ahead of the final return to Zurich, but without their checked luggage. According to Business Insider, citing data from Flightradar24, the flight circled off the coast of Crete half a dozen times before U-turning to land in Athens. The outlet reported that the plane made four stops and endured an overnight stay in Thessaloniki during the 32-travel time. The plane also stopped in Athens a second time and in Kos before returning to Zurich.
Ground hog flight:
Can’t believe the film Groundhog Day came out 30 years ago…
It feels like just yesterday.
I don’t have a date for Groundhog Day. I guess that means an extra six weeks of sweatpants.
Groundhog Day: “This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather.”
Ground Hog Day is where the Democrats live.
June 13th Birthdays
1986 – Ashley Olson and Mary Kate Olson, 1987 – Kat Dennings, 1989 – Lisa Tucker, 1962 – Ally Sheedy
1982 – Chris Evans, 1991 – Aaron Taylor Johnson, 1953 – Tim Allen, 1978 – Ethan Embry