Norwegian Air Experiment Went All Wrong (or "An Exercise in Dumb-F**kery")

Well, that didn't go as planned...

Perhaps Ed and I are too used to more experienced airlines, but I really really really wanted to love Norwegian Air. I want to go to Bergen. I want to drive through the fjords. I want to see the new architecture.

I don't, however, really want to fly Norwegian again.

This was out plane - the Freddie Mercury 787 - look for the gash on the other side before getting on.

It started out a tiny bit badly, leaving JFK for Gatwick last Wednesday night (October 25th). They were 2 hours late. Now, the good news is we were told early enough to stay home and eat dinner. The bad news is, there is nothing much to do in JFK terminal 1 after 11 PM and the flight didn't leave until 1 AM Thursday.

But, we thought, it was comfortable enough: we slept till Gatwick. It would be better on the return.

We were wrong.

Leaving at a civilized 5:45PM from Gatwick on Tuesday, all seemed to go well. In fact, we were to push off 15 minutes early.  That announcement was followed almost immediately by an announcement that the Jetway would not retract, and we were stuck.  For about 40 minutes.

Then came the bad decisions and the cascade effect.
- First they decided to drive away from the Jetway.  Whoops
- Then they had to inspect the damaged they did to the plane, by driving away from the Jetway.
- Then they needed a tool from Boeing to better inspect the damage they did driving away from the Jetway.
- Then the tool had to be delivered (from Heathrow?) to inspect the damage they did driving away from the Jetway.
- Then they canceled the flight (cue "wont- wa" music)
- Then they couldn't get the Jetway to work to unload us from the plane they damaged when driving away from the damaged Jetway (see beginning of story).

"But there's a hole in da bucket, Dear Liza Dear Liza..." (joke for a few of us from summer camp).

So, after another 40 minutes (really) they started to unload the 787 from one back door and staircase.

That would be the end of it, right? Wrong.

Then we had to go through immigration - again.  And, being in the business class front, we were at the ass end of the line getting off the plane (which was okay) and to go through immigration (which was less than okay).

Of course, we never left England - so after waiting in immigration for 50 minutes - they talked to us for 2 seconds and waved us through.

Now, the good news is Ed got us on the very next flight (he was on the phone the SECOND the flight was canceled - unlike others who were stuck days, and still sent via Oslo). The bad news is that it left at 6 AM, so we had to be back at the airport at 4AM, which gave us less than 6 hours to check into the hotel, eat and sleep.

So... all in all, probably not flying Norwegian again.