When a pair of birds had enough paradise and were ready to join a plane full of travelers from Maui to New York, ground and flight staff had to get creative in finding a solution to get the stowaways off the Boeing 767-300.
Stowaway Birds Delays United Airlines Flight From Maui To Newark
Just prior to takeoff, ground staff noticed the birds onboard and set to work “re-accomodating” them.
My friend and colleague Zach Honig, who blogs for The Points Guy, was on the flight and brought us play-by-play action:
My @united flight is delayed “because we need additional time to assist customers.” Wait until you see WHO these “customers” are 😂 pic.twitter.com/AZEOr2LxsW
— Zach Honig (@ZachHonig) July 3, 2021
Hilarious!
The captain announced that lights would be dimmed in order to coax the birds out, which had wedged themselves inside a ceiling panel:
“We’re going to try something here, they tell us if we shut all the lights off, close all the window shades and put the window shades down, and place the front door open that will be the only source of light and maybe this small bird will see the light and fly out.”
2/4 (SOUND ON): pic.twitter.com/RH8EZKbcVv
— Zach Honig (@ZachHonig) July 3, 2021
The plan worked like a charm…the birds did see the light, followed the light, and stepped out of darkness and into the sun.
3/4 THE BIRDS!!! pic.twitter.com/0RhAphbg4J
— Zach Honig (@ZachHonig) July 3, 2021
Despite the delay, the incident put passengers in a cheerful mood:
4/4 CUSTOMERS ASSISTED 👏 Big applause for the @united Maui Tech Ops team! pic.twitter.com/oOfsEmwjux
— Zach Honig (@ZachHonig) July 3, 2021
And United took the opportunity to offer a few puns of its own:
We thought they looked a little seedy when they gave us their boarding passes, but they had on im-peck-able disguises. ^RA
— United Airlines (@united) July 3, 2021
As did Zach’s girlfriend:
Also 👏 for my girlfriend who provided even more entertainment onboard 😂 pic.twitter.com/asZaEYXQ63
— Zach Honig (@ZachHonig) July 3, 2021
CONCLUSION
This is a cute story with a happy ending. Harmless fun that ended with no pain and only a minimal delay. Hopefully those birds will realize that the easy path is not always the right path!
When I worked in a bakery in the early 70’s a bird made it into the production facility. A 22 rifle with bird shot was pulled out of a locked closet and one of the ‘engineers’ shot it. The only repercussion was one line supervisor found out she started crying and cursing the engineer as she chased him around for five or ten minutes beating at his back. I often think what would happen if that were to occur today.
Gross. All surfaces the birds came in contact with should be disinfected.
Good grief. Did they know the birds had gotten into the cabin before they boarded passengers? If so why would they not try and coax out and then clean the aircraft again?