British Airways Accidentally Lands In Scotland Instead Of Germany

Ted Ranosa, Tech Times 27 March 2019, 09:03 am

A British Airways flight bound for Germany landed in Scotland instead, leaving many passengers onboard surprised and confused.

The plane reportedly took off from London City Airport and headed for Düsseldorf, Germany. However, it was somehow redirected during its flight and ended up in Edinburgh, Scotland, 525 miles from where it should have landed.

The passengers, who were unaware of what was going on with their flight, only found out about the mix up when they heard the "welcome to Edinburgh" announcement.

The BA flight was still able to make it to Germany later on, despite the initial confusion. The airline has also offered an apology to all affected passengers.

"We have apologized to customers for this interruption to their journey and will be contacting them all individually," British Airways wrote in its statement.

Redirected British Airways Flight

BA said it is already working with German company WDL Aviation to find out how exactly the plane's flight was mixed up. WDL was the one who operated the redirected flight through a leasing deal.

For its part, WDL said it is collaborating with authorities to investigate the incident. The company stressed that none of the flight's passengers were put in danger and that they all made it to their intended destination following the brief stopover in Scotland.

However, people onboard the flight were not convinced with the explanation provided by British Airways.

One passenger by the name of Son Tran tweeted about the whole experience, claiming that it felt like a "mystery travel lottery."

When BA replied to his tweet explaining that the flight was redirected, Tran fired back by saying that the incident was more like an honest mistake on the part of the airline.

Sophie Cooke, another passenger of the BA flight, told the BBC that the pilot himself said he was not sure how they ended up in Scotland, and that it never happened before.

Cooke said they had to wait two and a half hours on the tarmac of the Edinburgh airport before the flight to Düsseldorf was resumed.

Ryanair's Twitter Trolling Backfires

Irish low-cost airline Ryanair tried to take advantage of the British Airways blunder by trolling the company on social media only to have it backfire.

On its Twitter page, Ryanair wrote that it had a "present" for BA and added an image of the book Geography for Dummies.

BA offered a short reply, telling the Irish airline that "no one is perfect." However, other social media users were a lot snarkier in their remarks.

One user answered the book joke with an image that read Customer Service for Dummies.

Meanwhile, others reminded Ryanair of its labor problems, such as when it had to cancel 250 of its flights in 2018 because its pilots and staff went on strike. Some 35,000 passengers were left to change the travel plans while the protests were ongoing.

In December, Ryanair was slapped with a lawsuit from the Civil Aviation Authority after the airline had refused to compensate all of its passengers who were affected by canceled or delayed flights.

@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 — Son Tran (@sontrantuan) March 25, 2019

This feels like an honest mistake rather than a diversion. The crew was convinced of the Edinburgh flight path from the get-go... — Son Tran (@sontrantuan) March 25, 2019