Long-haul flights are bad enough—but imagine being on a plane for nearly 12 hours, sniffing stale air and shifting behind a reclined seat, all to end right back where you started. A British Airways flight from Heathrow airport to Tokyo did just that on Thursday, when it was forced to turn around due to a “technical glitch.” The flight was about halfway into its trip when it made the U-turn, touching back down in London after traveling 6,000 miles.
Flight BA7 was cruising over northern Siberia when it was directed to turn around. The plane landed at Heathrow around midnight, about an hour after it was due to arrive at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. A spokesman for British Airways claimed that the Boeing 777 “returned to Heathrow as a precaution after a minor technical issue,” though the airline hasn’t disclosed specifics about the glitch.
On their return to Heathrow, stranded passengers were given hotel rooms paid for by British Airways, and eventually got out the gate—for real this time—at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning. But the trouble may not end there for British Airways: Due to EU rules mandating passenger compensation for flight delays over three hours, the company could get slammed with an additional fine of up to £300,000 (about $388,380)—which includes a payment of €600 (about $663) to each passenger on board, along with those who were stranded in Tokyo awaiting their return flight to London.
Add in the cost of room and board for the Narita passengers, along with the wasted fuel, and the company is poised to lose big bucks on the error.
This hasn’t exactly been a banner week for BA: Thursday morning, prior to the London-Tokyo delay, an IT glitch at Heathrow's Terminal 5 check-in station caused massive delays for hundreds of passengers, inciting Twitter rage. One passenger, PR manager Shivani Ashoka, tweeted: “@British_Airways you utter shambles. 2hr+ wait, 7-lane queue for Club bag drop. Desks unmanned, ppl missing flights.” Shambles, indeed.