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Air Canada Pilot Buys 23 Pizzas For Passengers Stranded On Tarmac

They were supposed to be on the plane for two hours. They were on it for eight instead.
An Air Canada Airbus A320 lands on a runway at Pearson International Airport in Toronto in 2010.
Tony Bock via Getty Images
An Air Canada Airbus A320 lands on a runway at Pearson International Airport in Toronto in 2010.

A plane captain stuck on the tarmac in Fredericton made life a little more bearable for his passengers captive in their seats Monday.

Air Canada Flight 608 took off from Toronto and was bound for Halifax but was unable to land due to bad weather and was forced to divert to New Brunswick's capital instead.

Upon landing in Fredericton, passengers were forced to stay on the plane because the airport was busy since other planes had also been diverted there, CBC News reported.

That's when the Airbus A320's pilot stepped in and called Minglers Restaurant and Pub to order 23 pizzas — a mix of cheese and pepperoni — to be delivered to the plane.

"Our flight attendants and several pilots from our Air Canada Express partner JAZZ jumped in to help serve the pizza and made sure everyone was comfortable," Isabelle Arthur, media relations with Air Canada, told Daily Hive.

The flight with about 150 passengers, according to Narcity, was expected to be about two hours long — instead, they spent nearly eight hours on the aircraft.

"It was something that could have been very stressful; [the pilot] made it a lot easier," passenger Philomena Hughes told CBC News. "They looked like they appreciated the pizza ... they were pretty calm and pretty cheery."

This isn't the first instance of pizza deliveries and air travel coming together this year. Earlier in the year, Canadian air traffic controllers started buying pizza for their American colleagues who were working without pay due to the U.S. government shutdown.

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