Passenger Avoids Delay By Fixing Plane Himself 178
It would be a shame if an engineer on a recent Thomas Cook Airlines flight doesn't get a complimentary first class upgrade every time he flies. The engineer was on flight TCX9641 when it was announced that the trip would be delayed eight hours, while a mechanic was flown in to fix a problem. Luckily for the other passengers, the engineer happened to work for Thomsonfly Airlines, which has a reciprocal maintenance agreement with Thomas Cook. After about 35 minutes the man fixed the problem and the flight was on its way. A spokeswoman for Thomas Cook said, "When they announced there was a technical problem he came forward and said who he was. We checked his licence and verified he was who he said he was, and he was able to fix the problem to avoid the delay. We are very grateful that he was on the flight that day."
Who is "the engineer"? (Score:3, Informative)
The article quotes Keith Lomax as saying "It was reassuring to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane" which strongly implies Lomax is not the engineer. No other individual is named.
Re:Who is "the engineer"? (Score:2, Informative)
"It was reassuring [to the other passengers] to know the person who had fixed it was still on the aeroplane"
The sentence just above that talks about applause from the other passengers.
Re:No, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express (Score:2, Informative)
If your post was supposed to be funny, I have some bad news.
Re:Charity is Unpatriotic (Score:2, Informative)
Hmmm
The incident happened in Menorca, the USA's DHS has no jurisdiction in Europe...
Re:Charity is Unpatriotic (Score:5, Informative)
I can't give you a reference on that but I can tell you I was reprimanded and almost fired from a factory job where I assembled cartons for glass packaging. We had to cut strands of the cardboard away from the boxes to deal with mismatched cartons. Anyways, one day the shavings and cuttings were getting particularly heavy and started to create a hazard where the floor became slippery and presented a tripping hazard. I picked up a broom and swept the cuttings away from my work area and the shop steward started jumping my ass because they paid someone else to sweep the floor and I was taking his job away. I was told I was getting wrote up over it. I went off on the guy and the floor supervisor when he backed him up.
I quit the job before the reprimand could go through. That's my experience with a union and it backs the idea put forth by the GP. Of course every union will be different but I'm not sure if in this area. Unions are about getting money for people at the expense of the business, not saving the business money.
Re:BREAKING NEWS: Plane engineer fixes plane (Score:3, Informative)
It didn't really say either way. Since the summary falsely implied that the guy who was quoted was the engineer who fixed the plane, and he was on holiday, I at first assumed that he was on his own time. Since he wasn't the same guy, I have no idea whether the engineer was able to go on the clock or not, but the informality of it would lead me to guess that he did it on his time.
I looked to see if I could find a more informative article but I didn't come up with much.