About time DJ bought a new computer

[Andrew McLaughlin]

I was on DJ363 BNE-SYD which was scheduled to depart at 1900. They'd just called us up for boarding when the system crashed.

One idiot started abusing the desk crew and then went off swearing and carrying on - he was heard to be still carrying on in a nearby bar and was getting more agitated, so the police came over and spoke to him - turns out he wasn't even flying and was just there to see someone off!

Anyway, the desk crew just sat there looking lost, occasional announcements came over telling us to be patient etc. At about 2030 they decided to go manual and started calling everyone up in their sequence number order (I was 128...), but by the time they'd got to about 40 (1/2 an hour later!), the computers had come back, so we were all able to be boarded the conventional way.

The people at the desk themselves were very pleasant but they just looked lost, so I can only assume there was little direction coming from middle management. After working in hotels for 15+ years, I know $h1t happens with computer systems, but surely a manual system shouldn't take 90+ minutes to get started and then another 60+ to board an aircraft!?!?!

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, about 1/2 a dozen people didn't make the flight, so ofcourse their luggage had to be offloaded which took another 1/2 an hour. We finally took off at 2140, and landed in SYD at 2250. The head F/A also gave us free live-2-air but all I wanted to do was sleep after a very long day.

Then there was the 30 minute wait for the long term parking bus, but that's another story...