It should have been so easy - fly to England. All was going well until we reached Ireland, when the pilot came on to tell us all the airports in London were closed because of a snow storm. (!) So we flew around in a racetrack for an hour waiting for Gatwick to clear the runway - an interesting prospect given that they don't have snow-clearing equipment. Eventually of course, the inevitable happened and we went to plan B because of the fuel situation - Manchester. Plan B was good - land at Manchester, refuel and fly back to Gatwick. It only took us 30 minutes to get there, we were refuelled pretty quick and then air traffic control screwed us by giving us a takeoff slot 2 and half hours later. Anyone who flies will know what happened next - the crew ran out of time so we were stuck at Manchester. It then became apparent that Manchester didn't have any spare baggage handlers, steps, or immigration officers so they left us out on the ramp, on the plane, for 5 hours. When they did...
