Two planeloads carrying over 500 supporters of Irish rugby team Munster may have been flying high after their side beat Toulouse to win the Heineken Cup on Saturday - but delays of over 10 hours at Cardiff Airport brought them back down to earth with a bump, the Irish Examiner reports. A burst tyre and an out of hours 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 suffered a 3½ hour delays 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. This was not until 02:40.
A delay in fuelling and the decision to change the order of the flights - sending the Dublin passengers home 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 fans were also forced to wait overnight at Cardiff Airport after a replacement plane tyre had to be driven to the airport from Luton for their plane. The Monarch plane was initially due to leave at midnight to arrive in Cork just before 01:00. However, after landing at Cardiff, debris from the runway damaged one of the plane's tyres. The flight eventually touched down in Cork at around 09:00.
Add to: del.icio.us | Digg it | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit
