A stowaway mouse that leapt out of a beverage box on a Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) flight kept the airline’s flagship B757 grounded for 11 hours. Planes are not allowed to take off with rodents on the loose. Apart from the reaction they can cause among passengers (and cabin crew), there are obvious hygiene issues. More importantly, mice and rats can chew through vital cables.
Rodents can’t be poisoned in case they die in a concealed location and cause a stink.
The mouse compelled the airline to cancel its morning flight to Bangkok as well as delaying its midnight flight to Kuala Lumpur.
Eventually airline staff came up with a hi-tech solution — a mousetrap.
The mouse found the trap, which deployed in the customary way with terminal results.
“We have found the mouse, and the plane has been released,” a relieved engineer Shankar Thapa told Nepalese news source Republica.
“But the flight to Kuala Lumpur [scheduled for 11.30 pm] will be delayed as we are still searching to make sure there aren’t any more rodents in the plane.”
The runaway mouse arrived at a bad time for NAC, as the Nepalese flag carrier’s only other Boeing is in Israel for maintenance. As a result, the airline had to transfer 133 Bangkok-bound passengers to Thai Airways and pay for five-star accommodation for 63 passengers in Bangkok.
The 190-seater’s flight to Kuala Lumpur and return flight were both full, meaning NAC would have had to pay for five-star accommodation for passengers in Kathmandu and Kuala Lumpur, had the mouse not been found in time.
As it was, passengers were inconvenienced and the airline faces a hefty bill. But the smallest player in the drama came off worst.
Written by : Peter Needham
(Source: eGlobaltravelmedia.com.au)
No comments:
Post a Comment