Three British Airways flights were forced to make U-turns on Saturday, leading to significant delays for hundreds of passengers. This incident came less than a week after the UK's air traffic control system experienced a malfunction at the end of a holiday weekend.
The first flight to encounter issues was an afternoon journey from London Heathrow Airport to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Less than two hours into the six-hour journey, the Boeing (NYSE:BA) 777 operating as BA263 turned around and landed back in London due to a problem with its traffic collision avoidance system, which is necessary to enter Saudi airspace. This information was shared by The Independent, citing data from Flightradar24.
Passengers on this flight were booked into London hotels overnight, with a replacement flight arriving in the Saudi capital 21 hours later than initially planned.
Shortly after the first flight took off, another departed Heathrow for the French island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea (NYSE:SE). The flight, BA586, was more than halfway into its two-hour journey before it too had to turn back to London. After spending three hours in the air, it landed where it started. Its passengers also had to wait until the next day to reach their destination, arriving 20 hours late.
A third flight destined for Boston took off from Heathrow around 5 p.m., but was in the air for just 16 minutes before it had to make a U-turn. Airport congestion left it circling south of London before landing again.
The Independent estimated that due to these disruptions, British Airways could have to pay out $800,000 in compensation. This estimate is based on approximately 700 departing passengers and an equivalent number of arrivals being affected by these delays.
In response to the incidents, a spokesperson for British Airways told The Independent: "We are extremely sorry for the delay to our customers' journeys. We would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so." As of Tuesday, British Airways had not responded to Insider's request for comment.
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