Delay handling in the past

[StephenHunter]

Just watching a 1973 French movie where a flight to Moscow is delayed for an hour (as a passenger has decided to defect) while people are at the gate... so they tell the passengers to go to the bar.

Then it gets delayed for two more hours, and they get told they're getting lunch!

Did this sort of thing really happen?

 

[Sun Chariot]

Just watching a 1973 French movie where a flight to Moscow is delayed for an hour (as a passenger has decided to defect) while people are at the gate... so they tell the passengers to go to the bar.

Then it gets delayed for two more hours, and they get told they're getting lunch!

Did this sort of thing really happen?

As recently as mid 1990s, my London - Cincinnati - Seattle flight included us (group of three) walking out Cincinnati's terminal for one of the trio to smoke; and then we all ate in one of the terminal's cafes, before walking back air-side to join our Cincinnati - Seattle leg.

 

[The exile]

In 1983, returning solo as a 15 year old from Vienna I had three Wiener Schnitzel lunches - first before checking in, second courtesy of BA as the outward flight had had to turn back and then the third on the replacement aircraft which was something more suited to a trans Atlantic flight and victualled accordingly! Cause was a defective aircraft, not a defecting passenger, though.