I flew with American out of London yesterday, and it looks like I chose the right flight.
American 51 from London to Dallas was scheduled to depart London at 11:15AM and arrive in Dallas at 3:45PM. Well, that didn’t happen.
Apparently there was a medical emergency which caused the flight to divert to Iceland. Per aa.com:
At that point the crew wasn’t legal to fly all the way to Dallas, so they instead flew to New York:
And then a new crew took over for the New York to Dallas flight… over five hours later:
I’m guessing the five hour delay in New York was caused by issues of some passengers wanting to deplane, which probably became a mess in terms of baggage, customs/immigration, etc. I’d actually be surprised if a majority of people continued to Dallas, but rather I’d bet they just rebooked most peoples’ connections directly out of New York.
Ouch! This is obviously one of those really tough situations. I’m sure there were a lot of angry passengers, though American presumably did everything in their power to operate the flight on schedule, and if anything they took the biggest loss on the diversion. But unfortunately I’m sure that still won’t prevent people from taking it out on the airline, given how massively they were inconvenienced. Arriving at your destination over 12 hours late due to a medical diversion is rough.
All that being said, in a totally non-grim kind of way, am I the only one that has always kind of hoped for a diversion to Iceland in the back of my mind? On one hand I really don’t want one since the implications aren’t positive (they’re not diverting for fun, but rather for medical or mechanical reasons), but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking it would be kind of cool… in theory.
Final approach into Reykjavik Airport
I hope whoever they diverted for is okay!
Was anyone on AA51 yesterday that can share a firsthand report?
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