BA passengers board plane to fly to Dusseldorf..........

[fluffyflops 1,845]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-6847697/BA-passengers-board-plane-fly-Dusseldorf-pilot-takes-EDINBURGH.html

I cant tell you how much this story makes me smile in so many different ways. 

 

[simbol 5,807]

[KevinAu 441]

There really isn’t any way the flight crew got the ‘wrong’ flightplan. The crew knows where they are supposed to go on their pairing and went exactly where wdl dispatched them to. The mixup happened at a higher level where BA marketing sold ‘3271’ as london city to dusseldorf while wdl operations somehow ended up with ‘3271’ as london city to edinburgh in their system.

[HighBypass 2,339]

LOL! Pre-emptive shenaningans from Germany before Brexit perhaps?    ..

On the bright side for anyone on board who was an aviation buff and didn't have an important schedule to keep: Double the number of takeoffs and landings!  ... and more experience for the crew I guess..

[fluffyflops 1,845]

4 hours ago, KevinAu said:

There really isn’t any way the flight crew got the ‘wrong’ flightplan. The crew knows where they are supposed to go on their pairing and went exactly where wdl dispatched them to. The mixup happened at a higher level where BA marketing sold ‘3271’ as london city to dusseldorf while wdl operations somehow ended up with ‘3271’ as london city to edinburgh in their system.

Disagree mate. They boarded the pax.  The skipper couldn't of made a welcome aboard pa either.   That flight number is always the Dusseldorf I believe.

and its not 'marketing'  its the 'commercial' department.

The 2 departments are completely different one makes adverts to put on the side of buses. the other works out the business needs of the company who then passes that to scheduling department to build the timetable, who then give the timetable to operations to deal on a daily basis and to roster it. 

I bet there was some confusion as which flight the subcontractor Was operating and they boarded the wrong pax onto the wrong aircraft.  

Something along those lines. 

I've lost count in the 10 years In ops the handler tried  boarding the wrong aircraft due to mis communication from ops normally you suss it before it happens. 

I remember at easyJet the handler at Luton once put an old lady in a wheelchair (who spoke no english) on the Luton- Milan instead of the Luton-.madrid .  She only realised when her daughter wasn't at the other end airport to pick her up.  I remember The then head of OCC hit the roof because no one checked the boarding card.

We've also had it at my airline years ago, UK Border Force / Home office put  a deportee  (who was a convicted sex offender) on the joburg instead of the Delhi by mistake.  The paperwork in a sealed envelope whent into the flightdeck, it was only when they got to joburg and there was no police to meet the aircraft that all hell broke loose. 

These things can happen, I just like that it happened to BA 

Edited March 25, 2019 by tooting

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I believe the concept of heaven is eternal mirth--hearing this story has certainly given me that, since I was a world traveler before I retired.  It brings a memory of a cold, dark night where we taxied towards the runway and the pilot announced our destination, waking up a passenger who I noticed had been sleeping in her seat when I boarded the puddle jumper.  She became belligerent when she heard the destination announced because she was already at her destination, the flight crew simply forgot to wake her up. 

We were not happy with the passenger or the flight crew that night, because it caused about a 45 minute delay to our destination as we had to taxi back to the gate, and get back in line for the waiting flights to our destination which I recall was somewhere in Oklahoma, I do not remember it well, it was just a cold night in hell with an obviously drunk passenger and airhead flight crew.  I hated puddle jumpers because the professionalism of many, not all, because I do not want to get into an argument, but many of the flight crew were not on par with the big leagues....  The airline involved was Mesaba, and they went out of business, go figure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesaba_Airlines

John

[Captain Kevin 586]

9 hours ago, tooting said:

I cant tell you how much this story makes me smile in so many different ways.

 

3 hours ago, tooting said:

I just like that it happened to BA 

Can I ask why?

[IAhawkeyeDDS 158]

I said I wanted a Bratwurst, not a battered Mars bar! How Dusseldorf and Edinburgh differ as cities

🤣😂🤣

[fluffyflops 1,845]

39 minutes ago, Captain Kevin said:

 

Can I ask why?

sure... I dont have much love for BA. 

https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/virgin-atlantic-still-flying-high-you-bet

virgin is still waiting for the million quid or an apology at least.

had that of been Ryanair or easyjet today the press would of been all over it like a rash. 

 

Edited March 26, 2019 by tooting

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Back in the late 80's or early 90's I believe, Virgin Airlines which was launching SFO-London service, "kidnapped" some wine country bound paparazzi and took them to some Sonoma county wineries (sacrilegious for those like me in the Napa Valley Hotel business).  It was all a publicity stunt reported by our local papers in Napa for the launch of their SFO-London service.  The paparazzi were wined and dined by Virgin and Sir Richard Branson.  But we in Napa got our publicity, several films were shot around Napa, and the TV Series Falcon Crest, and the Falcon Crest cast and Prince (or whatever he called himself then) visited one of the two hotels I worked at. 

The movie "Nine Months" had many scenes filmed at my friend's wineries around Napa, and the re-release of the Parent Trap was also filmed extensively around Napa, but I had already moved away at that time.  I laughed because they filmed Lindsey Lohan and her father landing at what I called "Napa International Airport" which appeared to be Burbank to me, since Napa had at that time no scheduled airline service, only once having service, STOL Air Commuter, in the early 80's--I knew the family that owned that small airline and their father was our TWA Captain on the JFK-San Francisco leg of a flight home I took from Europe in '82.

Napa had a "wrong way" airline 727 land there once when a pilot for an air cargo carrier, I do not remember which, mistook it somehow for Oakland airport, which I found plausible because of the way the runways were laid out, since Oakland has a runway running roughly parallel to one of Napa's, albeit 35 NM away or so by air.  Punch in the wrong VOR, and you line up for Napa, and the landing was apparently after the tower had shut down for the evening, but three mic clicks could turn on the landing lights or they were still on due to fog, I do not know the full details.  Napa's main runways were not long enough to handle jets back then although now they can handle an MD8x/9x or BBJ as they do from time to time, it's main runway 18R and 35L that is, so it is an international airport but just for private air or charters now. 

The local pilots said that when the errant 727 took off from Napa it used up every available inch of the runway and left ruts in the runway which at that time did not have the weight specs for heavier aircraft.  The Napa Register and airliners.net sees large 737 sized aircraft land there five or six times a year, usually for the PGA Golf tourneys there.

John

[KevinAu 441]

7 hours ago, tooting said:

Disagree mate. They boarded the pax.  The skipper couldn't of made a welcome aboard pa either.   That flight number is always the Dusseldorf

I bet there was some confusion as which flight the subcontractor Was operating and they boarded the wrong pax onto the wrong aircraft.  

Something along those lines. 

I've lost count in the 10 years In ops the handler tried  boarding the wrong aircraft due to mis communication from ops normally you suss it before it happens. 

Yeah, I think you’re probably right. I can see the gate agent boarding the people onto the wrong plane. All the articles make it sound like the pilots flew to the wrong airport, which is completely not the case. The pilots, though, should always make clear where the plane is going on his welcome pa. Because it does happen quite often where someone back there got on the wrong plane.

Edited March 26, 2019 by KevinAu

[Jim Young 2,356]

Due to complaints, I have removed all comments about Brexit from the conversation as it is completely off-topic and this topic is about a British Airway jet going the wrong way.  Please keep the conversations on topic.

[HighBypass 2,339]

Apologies, Jim. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,925]

The British Daily Telegaph reported this story today. I won’t paste the full text but this is the relevant part. Not British Airways fault after all...

A BA spokesman said: “We are working with WDL Aviation, which operated this flight on [our] behalf, to establish why the incorrect flight plan was filed. We have apologised to customers for this interruption to their journey and will be contacting them all individually.”

WDL added that it was “working closely with the authorities to investigate how the obviously unfortunate mix-up of flight schedules could occur”.

[John_Cillis 2,406]

In all my travels I have only had two diversions but they had to be made.  One was when I was inbound from Frankfurt in 1984 to JFK.  A bad storm had hit and flooded the runways, we circled for more than two hours before we, low on fuel, finally had to divert to Philly.  Philly customs was unprepared for the influx of wide body jets, mostly 747's like ours, and we were forced to be sequestered on the increasingly hot jet and as pax we erupted in anger at the flight crew which had suspended beverage service thinking we would deplane any moment.  They finally provided us beverage service and eventually we made it too customs, on the opposite side of the airport from the domestic terminal.  By the time I got to the TWA check in to try and book a flight home, the gate area was crowded with hundreds of angry mob pax complaining about a weather delay that was an act of God.  So I just got out of line, waiting for the mob to clear knowing I would not be flying home that day.  When I got to the female gate agent I simply said "I am so sorry for what you had to go thru with pax swearing at you for something out of your control".  She shyly winked at me and said "You are easy" and she handed me a  hotel voucher (which I could not use since the hotels had filled throughout the city, so I stayed awake all night in the airport" and a United ticket leaving first thing the next morning, via a dried out JFK by that time.

It was only then I looked at my ticket and noticed my seat assignment on the outbound DC10 was at the front of the aircraft, meaning she had upgraded me to first class.  When I got on the flight we first flew to JFK to pick up stranded pax from the previous day, and those of us continuing to SFO were warned not to deplane, that the terminal was a mad house, so we stayed onboard and I got home some 24 hours after I was originally supposed to get there.

My other diversion was inbound to Denver on a Mexicana flight from Zacatecas.  Denver got badly fogged in so we were diverted to Pueblo where we stayed for about an hour or two.  When we finally came in on approach to Denver, I did not see the runway emerge until we were over it, just before touch down.  The airline I was to fly out on was woefully under equipped and it had its own mob scene, and I was angry, it was the first and only time I had booked a flight on that airline, which competed with United and Frontier, but never again would I choose to fly them and they went out of business. 

We were stuck at Denver for seven hours while they scrambled for equipment to get their stranded pax home, and by then I had a migraine headache, my poor wife had to deal with an ill tempered husband, who had also been sick with the flu a week prior in Zacatecas.  My father in law there, a trained doctor, gave me an antibiotic injection right before I left that saved my life, to the laughter of my wife who told him "jab it in there" and I need not say where "there" was.  As a diabetic I am now just as skilled as he is at giving myself injections when needed, having been trained by my nurses when I was hospitalized with a diabetic seizure in 2017.

I was almost diverted inbound to Pellston Michigan in 1994 when fog also almost got our Beech puddle jumper to run out of fuel after three missed approaches.  Finally the pilot warned us we would have to go in at treetop level because we could not make the alternate airfield due to low fuel.  And that is what I saw for the two miles before we landed, trees whizzing by us, barely 100 feet below us.  He had to go in at the low altitude because with the low fog it was impossible to make out the runway lights. 

My colleague kept hearing our approach, he was waiting to pick me up on the ground to drive me to Gaylord Michigan where I was relieving a fellow lead who had become ill, but the reason she had to leave was a ruse, I had learned the same colleague who picked me up had run into trouble with my client, but he had to stay, and my fellow lead was so angry with him I was asked to come in to defuse the situation with the client, and right him up for which he was sadly terminated. 

I felt bad because he had to go thru hell hearing my inbound aircraft make missed approaches, and he said from his point of view when he saw our last final, he saw us certain we were going down in the trees, which we almost did because we were running on fumes.

When we finally landed the first off the aircraft was a deadhead pilot, who got down to the ground, knelt and kissed the ground.  I knew how close it was then, witnessing that.  I berated my boss who forced me into a difficult situation with my colleague but my client appreciated what I did and gave me her support and care while I was there to finish our contract with them.  I later left my bosses project a few months later after I threatened to quit, being offered instead transfer to our international team which took me not only to Europe, but to Mexico where I met my wife, who worked for Mexicana airlines.  She got me free tickets for our marathon dates back and forth between Mexico and the Bay Area, and my client there offered me his hotel for free during the Christmas and New Years holiday in 94 and 95.  In 97 he again gave me free meals at his hotel while I was sick, and we shared drinks at the Quinta Real lounge complex and hotel where my wife and I had our first date, exactly five years to the day my daughter was born.

John