Are you back yet? I suspect you are in the air as I type! The only thing I've managed to find out about your delay is the aircraft assigned to your original flight (G-DBLA I think) suffered a serious technical problem in Male (Maldives) as you were correctly told. FCA positioned in a replacement aircraft (G-PJLO) to operate the return flight which landed in Manchester 24 hours late. G-PJLO then operated FCA147/8 (your flight numbers?) to come and rescue you. Everyone is keeping tight lipped on this one so that's about all I've found out I'm afraid. I've not managed to find out what the problem with the aircraft is, other than it was a serious technical problem identified on the ground in Male. I hope you got home ok, please let us know.
Thanks Dazbo for the above information. You were right - G-PJLO did come to rescue the folk stranded in Kerala - however not without further delays (some more "rumourreasons" - Operations/Planning error on final flight of the season, Indian Visas for crew had expired, Pakistan missile tests causing flight diversions!)
It actually arrived into Kerala at around 13.30 Indian time Saturday - and we didn't make it to Gatwick until about 20.30 UKtime Saturday - thus missing everyones connecting flights - and some folk had re-booked them, thus they lose double money. Most insurance policies only cough up about £30 for a 31 hour delay - and First Choice state they will pay nothing.
So lots of us lost lots of money - plus had a pretty awful experience.
That's life I suppose, and we may never know the whole truth!
and do plenty of 
.
