When you fly a lot, you get used to all the security procedures handing off your luggage, entering the boarding area, boarding into a plain and take of or landing. Today I experienced a whole new security procedure regarding the security of the airplane itself.
On the day of a trip to Zurich over London, I got an email from British Airways that my flight was delayed. The BA286 from San Francisco to London was delayed even more than 3 hours. This is uncommon. I later learned that there was a passenger in London who got sick, and had to un-board the aircraft. Normal security procedures are that the luggage of the person needs to be removed from the plane as well.
While I was waiting for my connecting flight in London, boarded and in the seatbelts, the captain informed all the passengers that the take off would be delayed, as the airplane was damaged while loading the luggage of all the passengers. It should only take 5-10 minutes he said!
After 15 minutes the captain came back to us, informing all the passengers, that because of the the plane was damaged, the police needed to be informed and take photo’s of the damage. Also, the police needed to be present when the damage was being fixed. Although there was just a small strip on the airplane damaged, you cannot be too careful with these things!
Now that was not the end of it all. There was also a small computer problem, which did not allow the plane to fly in clouded skies. Back to the gate, and hopefully a fix would be possible. after it was fix, my second new security procedure was revealed: when a plane is departing from a gate, even if it’s the second time within a short period with the same passengers on board, they still have to show the security/ emergency video again. The flight attendants were pointing out the nearest emergency exits for the second time within 2 hours!
Nice to see these guys take their job this serious…
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