Rugby fans stranded at Cardiff Airport
26.05.08
Two planeloads of supporters of Irish rugby team Munster may have been flying high after their side won the Heineken Cup in Cardiff - but delays of over 10 hours in Cardiff Airport brought them back down to earth with a bump, the Irish Examiner reports. A burst tyre and an out of hours cabin crew meant two Cork-bound flights were grounded at the hub.
While fans booked with Munster Sports Travel made it to the match, their cabin crew experienced 3½ hour delays in getting to their hotel. That put them out of hours for the return flights to Cork at 22:00 and Dublin at 01:40. The airline was unable to supply a back-up crew so the original staff had to be brought back into service when they were legally within hours, but that was not until 02:40.
A delay in fuelling and the decision to change the order of the flights - sending the Dublin passengers first - meant that by the time the aircraft returned to pick up the Cork fans, it did not depart until 08:30, 10½ hours after its expected departure.
Meanwhile, 358 other Cork-bound Munster fans were also forced to wait overnight in Cardiff Airport after a replacement plane tyre had to be driven to the airport from Luton.
The Monarch Airlines Airbus A300 was initially due to leave at midnight to arrive in Cork just before 01:00. However, after landing at Cardiff, debris from the runway was found to have damaged one of the plane's tyres. The plane eventually touched down in Cork at around 09:00.
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