A five-hour delay to find an elusive mouse would have made flight delay insurance a wise investment.
Norwegian Air Shuttle was forced to delay a flight to New York by five hours on this week because of a hunt for a mouse in the cockpit.
“The pilots discovered a mouse on flight deck,” spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh told
Reuters. “We had to make sure that no cables or wires had been chewed.
“This does not happen very often, but it does happen from time to time.”
What would have come in handy for passengers stuck on the aircraft is flight delay coverage.
Warren Buffett's
Berkshire Hathaway has started offering travel insurance that costs $25 per trip when things go wrong with your flight.
A breakdown of the coverage – under the AirCare brand name – pays $1,000 when a tarmac delay stretches past two hours, $500 if your luggage is delayed more than 12 hours, $1,000 if your luggage is lost or stolen and $500 if a flight delay keeps you from catching a connecting flight.
There is a $50 payout if a flight is delayed more than two hours – say by a search for a mouse.
Norwegian became the only European budget carrier last year to fly long-haul routes, but an unfortunate string of technical troubles with its Boeing 787 Dreamliners forced the delay of many of its flights, according to
Reuters, leaving passengers stranded at airports from Bangkok, Thailand to Florida.
The airline has since improved its reliability, but it runs its Dreamliners 18 hours a day, five to six hours more than traditional carriers, so even small delays can cause significant schedule disruptions.
But did the five-hour delay produce any results?
“At least the mouse was caught,” Holmbergh told
Reuters.
