Passengers bemused after BA flight bound for Dusseldorf lands in Edinburgh
Passengers on a British Airways flight bound for Dusseldorf in Germany this morning got a nasty shock when their plane landed in Edinburgh – 844 kilometres from its correct destination.
The flight, operated by WDL Aviation for BA, departed London City Airport at 7.46am this morning, and should have arrived in Dusseldorf less than an hour later.
But because of an error filing the flight paperwork, the plane landed in Edinburgh at 9am, according to Flightradar.
Not a great start to the week —thanks to a mistakenly filed flight plan, a WDL Aviation flight operating for British Airways flew to Edinburgh when it was supposed to go to Düsseldorf. https://t.co/1y1byUZrCm pic.twitter.com/rMlYBSDll5
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 25, 2019
Passengers reportedly alerted the pilot and crew to the fact they were in the wrong city when the plane landed and they heard a “welcome to Edinburgh” announcement.
“We have apologised to customers for this interruption to their journey and will be contacting them all individually,” BA said in a statement.
The airline added it was working with WDL to work out what went wrong.
After sitting still in Edinburgh for one hour and 40 minutes, the aircraft eventually took off again for Dusseldorf, delivering bemused passengers safely – but late.
One Twitter user who claimed to have been on the flight said: “While an interesting concept, I don't think anyone on board has signed up for this mystery travel lottery…”
https://twitter.com/sontrantuan/status/1110107475368464385
It is unclear how many passengers were affected by the error but the BAe 146-200 aircraft usually seats up to 112 people.