A strange thing happened

If they get lost in the airport.....

I would guess that there was a last minute gate change. I have heard that announcement before.

You may be right, Frank, though I did not hear any announcement to Continental passengers of a gate change. One of life's mysteries.

They were probably shopping. Seriously. As the plane was in Canada and going back to the U.S.--it was a Continental flight--the crew was probably either in duty free or getting things they can't buy in the U.S. This is common.

I remember once being on a charter from LAX to Guaymas, Mexico. It was a quick turnaround but still every crew member, as well as the two additional airline employees hitching a ride, hit the airport store for Tequila. (Not to be drunk in flight.)

Speaking of Continental Airlines and strange occurrences..... On two consecutive internationals flights with them recently, flights attendants have gotten into very heated arguments in front of passengers mid-air, and actually had to be separated, and sent to separate ends of the plane. On a flight from Heathrow to Newark it was two male flight attendants who had issues, the other flight from Hong Kong to Newark it was two female FAs. Normally this would be very unprofessional behavior from people responsible for our safety, but on the other hand you have to take into consideration both crews were based out of Newark, New Jersey:)

The last time I flew with Ryanair out of Bournemouth Airport, the passengers had all been advised by email several days earlier that the plane was leaving an hour earlier than scheduled. So we passengers were all there, checked in and waiting- but they had forgotten to tell the crew! There were some red faces that day.

Speaking of strange things while traveling.....a friend told me that once she was flying on a little commuter plane from somewhere in Europe (sorry I forget)to Italy. Because it was a small plane, the flight attendent's seat faced the passengers. After the attendent buckled herself in, she crossed herself and started praying! Needless to say, this scared my friend to death, but all was well, they flew and landed with no problem.

I had sort of a weird pilot experience once. The gate agent vaguely announced an “issue” with respect to the cockpit crew that would cause a delay in our departure. Of course, passengers became a little edgy. What does “issue” mean…drunk, incompetent, nuts, no license, terrorist, what? Anyway, it turned out that the pilot was over on hours. A new crew was called in to replace the original crew, and we left about two hours later than the original departure time.