We turned up at Manchester Airport at 12pm to check in for the 15.30 flight to Faro, when we checked in we were told by the Servisair checkin agent that their would be a 3 hour delay and this was due to industrial action in Faro, we accepted this as there was nothing the airline could do and all other flights to Faro were also delayed.

We then proceeded to the departure lounge in Manchesters new re-furbished part of terminal one, which I have to say was excellent and did pass the time until we had to go to the boarding gate.

At 6pm, the screens displayed go to Gate 31, which was at the very end of C pier, quite a long walk. We boarded the aircraft in no time, very quickly and efficently by the staff. After boarding was complete we were sat on the aircraft for about 20 mins, as we were sat near the front we could see some sort of meeting going on with the staff in the flight deck with the Captain and AIH staff, five minutes later the Captain informed us that their was a technical problem with the aircraft and that we had to wait for a new part to arrive, and he asked us all to disembark from the aircraft as this could be a few more hours to wait.

We disembarked back into the lounge at the gate area, some people were starting to get angry with the AIH staff, but it wasn't their fault that the Airbus A320 GVCED had a technical problem, and the staff did provide us all with a snack and hot drink whilst we were waiting, by this time it was about 9pm, 5 and a half hours after we should have left, when an annoucement came over the tanoy saying "Due to on-going technical problems with this aircraft, we wish to advise passengers that the next available aircraft for this flight will be at 6am the following morning".

We were all then taken back out of the airport and put into the Radisson SAS Hotel which overlooks the Runways and terminals at Manchester.

The following morning we re-checked in at 4-30 as AIH had arranged and proceeded back to Gate 31, where GDJAR AIH 320 was, we boarded, again very quickly, and the flight pushed back from the stand at 6-15am.

As we were taxing out to 06R runway at Manchester the aircraft stopped for a while on one of the taxiways, and the captain made an annoucement:

"Unfortunately we have to return to the stand again, we have a technical probelm with this aircraft".

So we returned to the aircraft stand which was B8, and we all waited on board the aircraft for over an hour whilst the engineers fixed the problem.

N.B. The second aircarft was a different aircraft than what we started with, both had technical problems.

We eventually departed on GDJAR at 10-30am, 19 hours after the scheduled departure time!!!!