As it turned out, Bradley was an easyJet pilot who had brought his ID and licence with him to the airport.
“My wife who’s on row 15 with my little boy — hopefully he’s asleep by now, I should keep it down or else I’ll get told off — she rolled over and punched me in the back of the head and said ‘our flight’s delayed by two hours because they are minus one captain for the flight’,” he said in the video.
“So just before we went through security I thought, I wonder if this is worth a phone call, I think it is because I’d like to go on holiday.”
Bradley said he phoned easyJet and told them he was “standing in the terminal doing nothing”, and was willing to assist as a pilot to ensure the flight departed.
After some deliberation, the airline took him up on the offer.
Bradley admitted he wasn’t dressed for the part but told passengers if they didn’t mind a slightly casually dressed pilot, they could go to Alicante. Passengers allegedly cheered in response to the news.
Michelle Potts, who was also going to Alicante on holiday with Jess Clayton, said Bradley was a “legend”.
“Get to boarding and asked the guy at the desk what’s going on he said ‘oh your pilot’s gone missing but a guy that’s going on your flight is going to fly the plane’ REALLY CASUALLY!!!” she wrote on a post to Facebook.
“Luckily the guy was actually a pilot!! probably would of been cancelled if it wasn’t for him! Legend.”
The flight was delayed due to an air traffic control failure, which meant the airline had to use standby pilots for the flight, an easyJet spokesperson told Manchester Evening News.
“We are grateful to one of our pilots who was travelling on holiday from Manchester to Alicante on 2 September with his family and volunteered to operate the flights,” they said.
The spokesperson said this was completely above board because Bradley was well rested, carrying his ID and licence with him at the time, and qualified to fly the particular aircraft.
