Off-duty EasyJet pilot saves the day by filling in for missing captain
An off-duty EasyJet pilot took matters – and the yoke – into his own hands Monday when his flight from Manchester Airport, to Alicante Spain, faced a delay because of a missing pilot.
Michael Bradley, the off-duty pilot, was headed to Alicante for vacation with his wife and son.
"My wife, who is on Row 15 with my little boy," Bradley told the passengers in a video posted on Facebook by Michelle Potts.
Earlier that morning, after checking on their flight's status, "she rolled over and punched me in the back of the head and said, 'Our flight is delayed by two hours because they are minus one captain for the flight."
Bradley added: "Just before we went through security, I thought, 'I wonder if this is worth a phone call. I think it is!"
Post by MichelleBoutiqueBabez.
Luckily, he was prepared for the situation: “I phoned up EasyJet and said, ‘Hiya, I’m standing in the terminal, doing nothing. I have got my licence with me – deliberately from being pushed in the back of the head at 3 a.m. I’d very much like to go on holiday. And if you need a favor, I’m standing here ready to go."
The airline told him they'd call back and 38 seconds later, they did.
"They said, 'Please, please pretty please – with a big cherry on top, can you fly the airplane to Alicante?' " Bradley recounted, adding that dispatchers said they'd reposition another pilot to fly the plane back.
Gesturing to his vacation garb, he told the passengers, "If you're all right with one of your pilots looking like this, we'll go to Alicante." The cheers in the cabin indicated they were just fine with that.
In a statement, EasyJet spokeswoman Holly Mitchell, told USA TODAY that the airline is grateful that Bradley volunteered to operate the flight. And because he had his ID and pilot's license with him at the time, the improvisation complied with airline regulations.
Mitchell also noted that Bradley's flight was affected by a computer system failure at French Air Traffic Control, which snowballed in the form of cancellations and delays for flights going through French and Spanish airspace on Sunday. (According to the BBC, EasyJet had to cancel 180 flights as a result of the outage).
Mitchell said that the failure led to crew changes and the need to call on standby resources across the EasyJet network.
The failure was also the reason the flight was short a pilot.
Bradley told the passengers that the reason their flight was missing a pilot was because the captain was on home standby status in Liverpool and it would have taken him 90 minutes just to reach the Manchester airport.
Mitchell said Bradley's action meant that customers could reach their destinations and illustrated the commitment and dedication of EasyJet employees.
Potts concurred, noting that that the flight probably likely would have been canceled if it weren't for Bradley. That made the pilot a "legend" in her eyes.
Follow Morgan Hines on Twitter: @MorganEmHines.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Off-duty EasyJet pilot saves the day by filling in for missing captain
