A British Airways flight destined for Dusseldorf in Germany has landed in Edinburgh by mistake, after the flight paperwork was submitted incorrectly.
The passengers only realised the error when the plane landed and the "welcome to Edinburgh" announcement was made.
The plane, which started at London's City Airport, was then redirected and landed in Dusseldorf. WDL Aviation ran the BA flight through a leasing deal.
BA said it was working with WDL to find out why it filed the wrong flight plan.
"We have apologised to customers for this interruption to their journey and will be contacting them all individually," BA said in a statement.
BA declined to say how many passengers were affected by the mistake.
BA say the pilot wasn't lost at any point, but because the paperwork said Edinburgh, the flight simply took that route.
German firm WDL said it was "working closely with the authorities to investigate how the obviously unfortunate mix-up of flight schedules could occur".
"At no time has the safety of passengers been compromised. We flew the passengers on the flight with number BA3271 to Düsseldorf after the involuntary stopover in Edinburgh," it said.
Sophie Cooke, a 24-year-old management consultant, travels from London To Dusseldorf each week for work.
She said when the pilot first made the announcement that the plane was about to land in Edinburgh everyone assumed it was a joke. She asked the cabin crew if they were serious.
The pilot then asked passengers to raise their hands if they wanted to go to Dusseldorf.
Everyone raised their hands.
"The pilot said he had no idea how it had happened. He said it had never happened before and that the crew was trying to work out what we could do."
Sophie said the plane sat on the tarmac at Edinburgh for two-and-a-half hours, before flying onto Dusseldorf.
"It became very frustrating. The toilets were blocked and they ran out of snacks. It was also really stuffy," she said.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47691478
Comments
I'd guess at.........all of them.
Edinburgh instead of Dusseldorf failed yet the politicians are hoping that sending passengers to Leeds / Bradford instead of Paris will have better results
Not one of the passengers or crew noticed they hadn't crossed the Channel and were going in the wrong direction? And if they did nobody alerted the crew so a message could get to the pilot?
Nobody realized until it was announced 'Welcome to Edinburgh?'
If the pilot had paperwork saying Edinburgh fair enough but surely someone on board would have noticed and spoken out?
I always thought a pilot would be a given a schedule of upcoming flights over upcoming days/weeks but it seems they turn up for work, are given a flight plan and then fly to that destination.
On a map, Düsseldorf would be travelling right and Edinburgh would be up, so how no-one knew is beyond me.
Remarkable that this lot just turned up and said 'right where are we off to today then' and off they went.