Lift Off

It's 4:27pm and we should be 33 minutes into our flight to Rome but as it turns out, we've hit a bit of a snag. The captain came over the speaker and informed us that it'd be another 40 minutes before we'd know if we would need additional maintenance. I'm disappointed about the inconvenience but it'd be a hell of a lot more inconvenient if Delta didn't catch whatever potential problem that the plane has prior to being 40K feet over the Atlantic.

This kills a little bit of the buzz but like I mentioned before I'd rather the buzz be killed before anything else.

As I typed the last sentence the captain, announced that we were all systems go. Ashleigh found out that the lavatories weren't flushing with the right amount of pressure. I guess that's a big problem on a 10 hour flight with 300 passengers. Who would've thunk it?

15 minutes later.....

So we started to taxi and pulled back the gate, when they fired up the engines a fuel pump light came on, the apprehension in the pilot’s voice was more a derivative of having to make such a disappointing announcement than from unease about the mechanical problem. They're having maintenance come back aboard....Yuck!

20 minutes later....

They've decided to give us the option to de-board while we wait, (not good) while they determine what they need to do.

90 minutes later.....

GRRR!!! So the fuel pump issue in the wing situation can't be fixed, which isn't a concern of the pilot, apparently that happens from time to time. The solution is to take on more fuel and re-map or route but this takes approval and we are now waiting for that said approval from the suits.

30 minutes later....

If you’re getting tired and annoyed by this disrupting style then imagine how we feel. We have the approval the higher ups but during our delay they sent our ground crew away and now they're rounding them back up. They said another 20 minutes.

30 minutes later......

We started to taxi out when a female passenger freaked out, we pulled back to the gate so that she could get off and now finally they've just asked us to turn off all devices so that we can finally take off. Total time: 210 minute delay.

9ish Hours later....

Wheels touch down.