'My flight delay hell'

Air passengers were grounded with little information

By BBC World's Nik Gowing

What was meant to be a 40-minute British Midland early Friday morning flight from Amsterdam's Schipol airport to London Heathrow finally ended 24 hours later on Saturday morning in Stansted.

Sporadic reports that flights were returning to normal across England after the air traffic computer crash were greeted with disbelief by the 150 of us cooped up for 12 hours on a British Midland A-320.

We knew differently, marooned on BD 100 out in the distant tarmac, with no aircraft steps, limited ways to stop us dehydrating, but a growing sense of camaraderie.

We were up at 0330 BST for the 0720 flight to get me back in good time for my Friday evening on-air duties.

Gowing was on board flight BD 100

Usually, on the brief Amsterdam-London flight you barely realise you have left the ground and landed.

Unusually, I travelled light, leaving battery chargers and routine necessities for a long plane journey in my hold luggage.

Never again.

Given this third air traffic fiasco, I expect any flight could require the endurance of a London-Tokyo experience.

Grounded

My producer Inga Thordar and I shuffle on board the packed plane by 0700. First groans at 0730.

The BMI captain explains the plane's inertia navigation system has failed.

We are grounded.

"As there will be a long wait, I have asked the crew to serve breakfast," he said.

Apart from water and colas, it is the last BMI can offer us before we are bussed from the plane and out of their responsibility 12 hours later.

Great. At 0830 the navigation system is fixed.

Mobile phones burst into life as business contacts and families are told, appointments and taxis are cancelled

Nik Gowing

"I have good news and bad news." The captain tries to reassure us. The plane is fit to fly.

But unknown to him until he asked for a take-off slot, Britain's air traffic computer failed an hour earlier.

Mobile phones burst into life as business contacts and families are told.

Appointments and taxis are cancelled.

On my right sits an American executive booked on a flight from Gatwick to Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina. He reopens his book on 'The State of Your Mind'.

I wonder what assessment he's making of those of us sitting around him.

The captain and crew are good humoured, unruffled and fun to listen to.

A few passengers start whingeing. I want to tell them to get things in proportion.

This is nothing compared to what people went through on 11 September, or the kind of horrors some of us have experienced in war zones.

The last time the British air traffic control computer crashed . . . . . . .I was on a BMI A-320, but at Brussels airport.

False optimism

"It was five hours last time. This is going to be a long haul," I warn.

The captain confirms the worse prognosis.

After four hours without leaving our seats, he asks us to prepare to be offloaded.

"If anyone wants to get their baggage and leave the flight for good, then ask now."

A few do.

The rest believe in optimism and assume they will still get to London by night fall.

So do I, foolishly.

Our bodies are aching, our heads are thumping - now we don't care where we stay or how we travel

Nik Gowing

We collect our re-boarding 'transfer' cards - but we ask ourselves - transfer to where?

Just after 1300, an urgent public announcement.

All the flock from BD 100 must regroup immediately.

There's a chance of a take-off slot. But we can't hear the gate number.

The TV screens are misleading.

We are half-running optimistically to gate D22, only to meet an impressively organised British Midland lady who redirects us back to D6.

Hopeful signs, our friends in the BMI crew have returned and are bussed out.

We crush on a bus. By 1400 we are back on the Airbus and full of optimism.

More fool us.

The captain relays his history of increasingly frustrating conversations with the Schipol tower.

Deadlines pass

"Now I can't get anything out of them."

His honesty is refreshing.

As deadlines keep passing, my producer Inga Thordar and I start examining boat options via the Hook of Holland, Ostend or Calais.

The BBC travel agents tell us they have received a fax from Eurostar who will accept no more bookings before Monday.

By 1700, frustration is starting to show.

Clothes are sticking in the sweat and there is deep discomfort.

But strangers are having animated conversations in the aisle.

In our eleventh hour of growing purgatory we must have been forgotten.

"I don't believe it!" A KLM flight has managed to get to Britain.

Swanwick computer failures wreaked havoc for third time

We speculate about dirty deals in the air traffic control business and the corporate power of some favoured airlines.

"We are furious," the captain told me outside the cockpit a few minutes later.

BD 100 is becoming like Castaway.

There is a second offer to leave the plane with baggage and a guaranteed passage back to the terminal building.

The call bell rings like machine gun fire.

"I have even worse news."

In the 12 hours since 0700 that morning, we have become experts at reading the captain's intonation and choice of words.

"The airline has cancelled all flights for the rest of the day."

As they leave, passengers openly thank the captain, the first officer and the crew for keeping up the banter and good spirits.

Long queues

Inside the building, a long queue snakes away from the transfer desk.

Outside, the BMI ticket desk is unmanned. We pass a 200-metre queue at the Easyjet desks.

By 2030, Carlson Wagonlit have amazingly found us two seats on the 0720 Saturday flight to Stansted, while others are threatened with having to stay several days without a flights.

A Dutch agent has somehow found two rooms in a local hotel.

Our bodies are aching. Our heads are thumping.

Now we don't care where we stay or how we travel.

0515 on Saturday morning. Twenty four hours on, another taxi ride to Schipol. Will we leave this time?

Yesterday's BD 100 plane still sits empty at stand 94.