Anyone used Zoom Airlines? We've always been curious about Zoom but after hearing this story, I'm not sure it's a good idea to use the carrier.

My sister and her family recently returned from Cuba on Zoom, 22 hours later than planned. She tells me the carrier has only six planes in the fleet. Originally scheduled to lift off at 2:45 p.m., they sat for two hours on the plane waiting for an engineer to figure out the problem. The passengers were deplaned to return to the airport until 10 p.m. when they were told that Zoom had to fly in a mechanic and an airpline part from Canada. After standing in many lines, they were finally put on a bus and sent to a hotel (a classy one she says). By this time it was around 1:00 a.m. They finally boarded the plane at 11:15 a.m. the next day to hear the pilot announce a problem with the cargo door. Fortunately they had the mechanic on board! He took out his screwdriver, got permission from the Cuban authorities to disembark and fixed the problem in a second. She adds that the carrier staff worked hard for the passengers.

This can happen with a regularly scheduled airline (we've had similar experiences with Iberia and with Royal Nepal) but I wonder if it's becoming more common and whether it's worth the savings to fly on a carrier with so few aircraft.

Lucy, Toronto