We went to Fatima then on to Lisbon. 8:30 Friday morning we got on to the shuttle. It took about an hour and a half to get through several layers of security. At 10:00 we got to the gate which had about half the required seating. We sat on a window sill.
At about 11:00 we were told the plane was ready so we got in line right behind the group of 12 who paid too much for their seats. In ten minutes we where on the way to the plane, well sort of. We were on a standing room only bus. After about 5 to 10 minutes we noticed that after the family of six who came behind us there seemed to be no movement.
A nice lady came down and said we had to wait. The plane had not been fuelled. We stood on the bus until just after 11:30 or as we call it take-off. Finally there was movement and the bus filled up. Then after about 10 minutes we took the 2 or 3 mile ride to the plane which apparently was actually at the Lisbon Airport.
Once on the plane we were ready to go.
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| Happy Travellers
We sat and waited finally the captain came on and said the airport was closed. A tire had blown on landing and the runway needed to be cleaned. Twenty minutes later he came on again to say the runway would be cleared in about 30 minutes then we would take off in about half an hour due to the back up caused by the closure.
I did not keep track of the time but I believe it was now about 1:00 P.M. or and hour and a half after take off. About 45 minutes into our wait the captain came on again to say there was a further delay. While we were waiting to take off someone had noticed a dint in the outside of a door. It was not explained how someone saw this, but it was explained that now we had to wait for an engineer to come and OK the plane for take off.
We sat waiting, while we did this the crew were veery kind explaining that they knew no more than us. After about 30 minutes the crew came on to say that by law they could not keep us on the plane for more than an hour and a half. We had been on the bus for half an hour then the plane for about two hours. It was indicated that as soon as the busses arrived we would be deplaned. Once again we waited for about half and hour.
The next announcement was the busses were busy, but as soon as they were available we would be deplaned. After about 20 minutes the crew announced that the busses were here but the airport had nowhere to put us so we needed to wait. There were a couple of announcements concerning no secure site at the airport. Then the crew came on and said that while we waited the engineer had arrived and OKed the door so it would only be about half and hour for the paperwork to be finished.
Finally the crew announced that once again we were ready to take off and were 4th in line. About 4 hours late we took off for our 8+ our flight.
We arrived 4 hours late, stood up, got our carry-on, and started for the door. The crew then announce that there was a back-up at immigration and were would have to wait for another 15 minutes. We did get out of the airport before dark.
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