A Passenger Flies Plane to Holiday After Original Pilot Came Late
- Pixabay/ juno1412
Spain – There's nothing worse than being excited about going on holidays, only for your trip to be endlessly delayed. One passenger in the United Kingdom was in this exact position until he volunteered to fly the plane to Spain himself.
Michael Bradley was going on holidays to Alicante with his wife and son back in 2019, but was stuck on a grounded plane after being one captain down.
As a pilot with easyJet himself, Michael rang his bosses and volunteered to fly the plane to Spain. His bosses at easyJet immediately agreed and the flight left for Spain.
Before the plane left Manchester Airport, Michael said on the speaker system: "My wife who's on row 15 with my little boy - hopefully he's asleep by now, I should keep it down or else I'll get told off - she rolled over and punched me in the back of the head and said 'our flight's delayed by two hours because they are minus one captain for the flight,'
"So just before we went through security I thought I wonder if this is worth a phone call, I think it is because I'd like to go on holiday. I phoned up easyJet and said 'Hiya, I'm standing in the terminal doing nothing. I have got my licence with me - deliberately from being punched in the back of the head at 3am - I have got my ID with me and I'd very much like to go on holiday and if you need a favour I'm standing here ready to go.
"They said 'we'll phone you back'. Thirty eight seconds later they phoned me back and said 'please, please pretty please with a big cherry on top, can you fly the aeroplane to Alicante'?"
Michelle Potts, who was on the flight with her friend Jess Clayton, posted a video to Facebook of the announcement, as reported by Irish Mirror site.
The mum from Greater Manchester said passengers cheered at the news. She wrote on Facebook: "It could only happen to me!! Get to the airport and our flight is delayed a couple of hours... then I happen to look at the original time and it changed to gate closing!! Had to leg it across the airport to get on the flight.
"Get to boarding and asked the guy at the desk what's going on he said 'oh your pilot's gone missing but a guy that's going on your flight is going to fly the plane' REALLY CASUALLY!!! Luckily the guy was actually a pilot!! probably would of been cancelled if it wasn't for him! Legend."
"I was a bit nervous when I was first told, but once he told us on the plane I was just relieved that we weren't going to be delayed," she said.
