Not Trying To Be A (Buda)Pest

About six years ago, I went on a family vacation to Budapest on Portugal’s flag carrier. This happened on the flight back home.

After climbing for about fifteen or twenty minutes, the Captain made an announcement.

“Hello. Unfortunately, we will have to return to Budapest to pick up some passengers who did not board. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

We turned back, landed twenty or so minutes after the announcement, and taxied to a gate only for the doors to open and a four-member family to board. They were not famous and they were not important; they were a family on vacation in Budapest, just like mine.

Later on, we found out they made a mistake and entered the wrong bus, saw our plane depart, and spoke to the bus driver who passed the information along for everyone to coordinate the return of the aircraft and boarding of the passengers. It was nice to see that, for a change, an airline didn’t have a “Your mistake, your problem, buy a new ticket, we won’t waste our money with fees and fuel” attitude, but were rather truly interested in getting all their passengers from A to B.