From Townsville to Darwin and back
On a return Air North morning flight- due to depart Darwin at 7am- there was a puzzling delay . All passengers aboard , up in the cockpit a man could be seen going through what looked like a pile of spreadsheets , seemingly ticking things off . Surely not learning how to fly the plane, one hoped ? Time ticked by , no announcement about the reason for the delay. Public relations lacking .
A ground staffer came aboard, stood in the cockpit entrance , had a conversation with the paper shuffler , departed after a while , came back with paper, which he gave to the paper chaser. Some sheets were seen fall to the floor in the reshuffle . Still no announcement why the hold up ...Three quarters of an hour after scheduled departure time , the plane began to trundle along the tarmac and eventually took off , providing a spy's close up of the Pine Gap like dome at Townsville when coming into land.
A friend bound for Melbourne recently spent an hour sitting in a plane on the tarmac in Townsville while the airconditioning was fixed .
