Did I mention Noumea in New Caledonia?

What was supposed to be an hour’s delay blew out to a half day when :-

1. The plane ran past the terminal turnoff trying to keep quiet and couldn’t turn around at the end of the runway.
2. The tug they called up (took an hour to get there) only to find that it couldn’t push the plane on it’s own.
3. Another tug (another 45 minutes) had to be hooked to the first tug to push the plane back.
4. As we were pushed to the terminal, the captain told us that the delay meant that if we took off after refuelling, the crew would be outside of allowable hours.
5. It took another four hours for QANTAS to assemble an A380 crew and get them airborne in a Jumbo.
6. Jumbo arrived about 3.30 local, crew handovers etc took another hour and a half.
7. They finally got the wheels up at about 6pm local.
8. Into Sydney at 7.45pm, nearly 14 hours late.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating