I was in MAD last week returing to DUB with EI. The inbound aircraft was delayed by about 15 minutes which then delayed the outbound flight. We were departing from T1 Gate Zone A. MAD T1 isnt a great place as its going through major renovations and theres not many places to get lost.

For some reason even though there were very few flights departing T1 and only 2 from the 20 odd gates in Zone A a pair of passengers for EI595 still managed to miss the late flight.
Even stranger they managed to get onto the airbridge after the a/c doors were closed and the bridge was retraction. The pax had already delayed the flight further by having thier bags removed from the holds yet they still didnt turn up before doors.

I'm perplexed as to how they managed to get down the airbridge past the gate agents who turned up a few minutes later. Onboard the plane it took us a few minutes to figure out the situation and realised one of the women was arguing the with the gate agents - who spoke barely any english.

Does anyone know how they could have got so far after the doors had been closed?


BTW, we all waved back at the ladies just to get at her even more. There was a stag party onboard who encouraged the waving. The woman who was arguing with the agents finally accepted reality when we pushed onto the taxiway - she turned her back and slid down the perspex airbridge door.