Sometimes we hear stories of passengers accidentally getting on a plane to the wrong destination. Sometimes (but very rarely) we even hear stories of planes landing at a wrong airport that’s near their destination.
However, this is a new one for me, as reported by BBC. This morning’s British Airways flight 3271 was supposed to fly from London City Airport to Dusseldorf, but instead flew to Edinburgh.
No, this wasn’t an intentional diversion. As you can see, Edinburgh is nearly in the opposite direction of Dusseldorf.
The flight was operated by a British Aerospace 146 from WDL Aviation, which is a German airline that is currently operating wet lease flights on behalf of British Airways.
So, what happened? Well, apparently the paperwork for this flight was submitted incorrectly. The error was only realized when the plane landed in Scotland and the crew announced “welcome to Edinburgh,” much to the confusion of passengers.
It’s not yet clear how this mistake was made, though British Airways is investigating. In other words, it’s clear the pilots thought that flight was operating to Edinburgh, but what about on the ground? Did the departures board say Dusseldorf, and there was just a disconnect between that and the crew? On departure, did the crew not announce that this was a flight to Edinburgh, and did the passengers not raise concern?
Very, very confusing…
As one Twitter user on the flight wrote:
@British_Airways can you please explain how can my morning flight taking off from LCY to Dusseldorf land in Edinburgh 😅? While an interesting concept, I don’t think anyone on board has signed up for this mystery travel lottery… #BA3271 #frequenttravel #britishairways
Here’s how British Airways responded:
The flight has been diverted to Edinburgh, we don’t have any information as to why at the moment. There is an estimated departure time of 10:30 from Edinburgh to make way to Dusseldorf. Sarah
That was followed up with this Tweet from the passenger:
This feels like an honest mistake rather than a diversion. The crew was convinced of the Edinburgh flight path from the get-go…
The flight has been diverted to Edinburgh, we don't have any information as to why at the moment. There is an estimated departure time of 10:30 from Edinburgh to make way to Dusseldorf. Sarah
— British Airways (@British_Airways) March 25, 2019
What a situation!
(Featured image courtesy of )
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