My flight out from LGW to Chania on Tues 15th had to be split across two planes as the regular plane was out of service - got put on the second plane which took off about an hour late. I noticed the same thing was happening to their Manchester flight from Chania yesterday (22nd) and the second plane wasn't even due into the airport until well after the scheduled departure time. So I felt not inconsiderable relief when the Gatwick flight took off more or less on time, around 6pm, and was looking forward to getting back to Brighton in time for supper.
Too soon. Within minutes the captain announced that we had to return to Chania following "indications" of a fault on one of the engines. By 6.45 we were back inside the airport building. After sporadic uninformative announcements we were eventually told at 9pm that the fault had been fixed and we would shortly be boarding. Boarding duly commenced a whole hour later and we were airborne around the time we should have landed at LGW. By the time I got through baggage reclaim etc it was nearly 1am and the last trains and buses had gone. Luckily I managed to hook up with a couple of girls from Saltdean and we shared a taxi back to Brighton, otherwise I was having visions of staying at the airport until 5 am - I think I've spent enough nights at airports in my life.
