An Interesting Trip

The fog cleared and the wind blew. In between there had been some glorious sunshine. Come departure time it was raining hard and we were advised that it could be bumpy just after takeoff and before landing due to the high winds. Takeoff was ok as was the flight coming into land though was a bit of a rollercoaster with a few muted screams heard from behind us. Great we thought we’ve arrived in one piece only to be told that the ground staff at Aberdeen couldn’t disembark us as they couldn’t work in winds above 45mph and it was blowing at nearly 60. The reason was that with a full hold of luggage if the passengers got off the plane would tip over. Basically we were being used as ballast. The most bemused person in all of this was the pilot who very good and kept us informed of what was going on and he’d never across this before. An hour and ten minutes later the wind had subsided enough to let get off. I’ve had many interesting flights over my 38 years of flying to and from Shetland but this was one of the weirdest.