Saturday, June 16, 2007
Will we ever get to Cozumel? --Part II
So the way Greg figured it, we went west until we hit Abilene, and then we headed south. One hour and 25 minutes into the flight, the flight crew made the announcement that we were going to divert to a "partner" city to refuel. And since we were on AeroMexico, all the announcements were in Spanish first, then English. We were trying to translate what the captain was saying in Spanish before he continued in English. Needless to say, it was easier to understand in English.
About 5 p.m., we landed in Reynoso, Mexico. If you can, check out a map. It's just over the border. A small city with a smaller airport--one runway and no taxiways. You turn around at the end of the runway and taxi back to the one turn off to the terminal building. And terminal building is really stretching it, too. But, again, I digress...
So, remember the wonderful (psycho) man sitting behind Greg? Yep, he kept mouthing off about how this was so bogus. "How come we have to divert? This is a load of crap." And on and on and on.
Here's Greg version of why we diverted: you have to have minimum amount of reserve fuel when you land. It's especially important if your destination is an island. In this way, if anything happens, we should have enough fuel to divert to Cancun, plus have extra fuel when we land there. Because we were routed around the weather, we wouldn't have enough of this minimum fuel to land. Hence, we need to divert and bring on more fuel.
Psycho man, " This is the worst flight ever. Why do we have to divert? Did you see that? I've never taxied on a runway before. What the heck! I hope there's not anyone else trying to land. We should have just waited until tomorrow morning to leave. We've just wasted HOURS of time. Do you think they'll let us get off the plane? There's not much here..."
Greg, "If that guy doesn't shut up, I'm gonna hit him!"
We were on the ground in Reynoso about 45 minutes. And then, we were off, making our way to Cozumel. Another easy two hours, and we finally landed in Cozumel at 7:35 p.m., about two hours and 10 minutes late. Wahoooooo!
And on a personal note, that's the first flight I've ever been on that diverted. Interesting!
About 5 p.m., we landed in Reynoso, Mexico. If you can, check out a map. It's just over the border. A small city with a smaller airport--one runway and no taxiways. You turn around at the end of the runway and taxi back to the one turn off to the terminal building. And terminal building is really stretching it, too. But, again, I digress...
So, remember the wonderful (psycho) man sitting behind Greg? Yep, he kept mouthing off about how this was so bogus. "How come we have to divert? This is a load of crap." And on and on and on.
Here's Greg version of why we diverted: you have to have minimum amount of reserve fuel when you land. It's especially important if your destination is an island. In this way, if anything happens, we should have enough fuel to divert to Cancun, plus have extra fuel when we land there. Because we were routed around the weather, we wouldn't have enough of this minimum fuel to land. Hence, we need to divert and bring on more fuel.
Psycho man, " This is the worst flight ever. Why do we have to divert? Did you see that? I've never taxied on a runway before. What the heck! I hope there's not anyone else trying to land. We should have just waited until tomorrow morning to leave. We've just wasted HOURS of time. Do you think they'll let us get off the plane? There's not much here..."
Greg, "If that guy doesn't shut up, I'm gonna hit him!"
We were on the ground in Reynoso about 45 minutes. And then, we were off, making our way to Cozumel. Another easy two hours, and we finally landed in Cozumel at 7:35 p.m., about two hours and 10 minutes late. Wahoooooo!
And on a personal note, that's the first flight I've ever been on that diverted. Interesting!
// posted by Leenie @ 1:56 PM 
