[FDOS]

Yesterday, my daughter left EDI for an afternoon flight to BRS, but instead arrived in CDG, thanks to storm Isha!

Fortunately, she was carrying her passport and does not have to work today, but that is one heck of a diversion, I reckon by the time you add the mileage for some holds near BRS, the diversion mielage will be about the same as the original flight – and to another country.

As an FQTV, I had a few diversions (part of the game), but never anything like this – how about anyone else?

[TominScotland]

Yes, that is amazing, FDOS. Interesting that nowhere in the UK could take the flight. I got back into Edinburgh with QR at 06.00 yesterday and all was (still) calm.

My only serious diversion was from HKG to TPE when the pilot decided that our KLM 747 could not manage the cross-winds safely. Overnight in Taipei (passports confiscated) and then back the next morning.

[Bath_VIP]

Mine was back in 1993.

Flying from Los Angeles to Auckland with Air New Zealand, bad weather in Auckland forced the plane to turn around and land in Fiji. By then the crew were out of hours so they put us up in a hotel for the day before continuing the journey.

A free visit to Fiji, I wasn’t complaining!

[Harbord1]

During the last storm just after New Year, my 82 year old Dutch mother in law was trying to fly London City to Rotterdam. The aircraft got to Rotterdam and tried to land twice but then diverted to Stansted. That was reasonable in the circumstances. However after that there was a total absence of service or information from BA. No one at STN knew anything despite all the passengers trying to find an answer. Should the passengers remain at STN, go back to LCY, get a hotel room or what ? Would they add an additional flight the next day ? All the available info said we should look online for rebooking options – but after several hours of repeat visits there was nothing whatever being offered online. All the BA app and website told us was the flight had been diverted.So we tried calling up BA and our call was automatically terminated (completely unacceptable) and then we found the call centre would be closing at 8pm. So in summary my very aged mother in law – who speaks no English – was stuck in Stansted with no clue as to what next. I found this level of service from BA to be completely unforgivable. When the flight gave up on Rotterdam they had 45 minutes to work out a plan and to communicate it with clear instructions – instead total silence for many hours which may have extended into days. In the end our only solution was for us to go and collect the passenger from Liverpool Street and she stayed overnight with us – it was lucky we were still in London. Finally at around 11pm we called BA customer service in America using the 1-800 number and we finally spoke to a real person who rebooked the passenger onto an Amsterdam flight the following day. But had we not used this initiative – which I highly recommend – she would probably be stuck in London for many days more as most of the flights were full or close to being full. How can BA think this is in any way acceptable ?

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Jacob, Bullfrog, esselle

[FDOS]

@Harbord1

Your mother deserved better service.

Fortunately, my daughter’s airline arranged a hotel room and a replacement flight, which is what one should expect under the circumstances.

[w8ster]

Apologies if this is too much of a diversion from the topic.. Is there any way to find out the reason a flight is diverted if I can see on FlightRadar24 that an emirates flight was diverted to KUL then left an hour later for SIN? presumably its storm since I could see the path that the plane circled around Singapore several times before heading towards KUL.

[Inquisitive]

Long ago, experienced a diversion to a different country in a Royal Brunei Airlines. The flight was Dubai – Calcutta- Singapore. Due to very heavy thunderstorm (and due to smaller aircraft, I forgot the model, likely B707), landing was not possible in Singapore and plane was diverted to Kuala Lumpur. After a wait about 2 hours inside aircraft, the flight came back to Singapore.

[Rferguson2]

Oddly, despite flying for a living for 20-odd years and also frequently for leisure I have NEVER diverted.

I have just read about quite the diversion for a Ryanair flight from Copenhagen to Dublin yesterday.

The flight left Dublin as planned, on approach to Dublin had two go arounds and with deteriorating weather diverted to Manchester. When conditions improved the flight again departed from MAN to attempt the final half hour to Dublin. When it arrived in the DUB area conditions again began to deteriorate and so aircraft were put in long holding patterns. After 35min of holding and no weather improvements the decision was made to divert for a second time – to Belfast. The flight then had another go around attempting to land in BFS and as the weather was also getting worse there ANOTHER diversion took place, this time to Liverpool. Everyone got off and overnighted there before finally making the jump across the irish sea the following morning and arriving in Dublin 21 hours late.

You can google ‘ryanair diversion copenhagen dublin’ to read more. 🙂

[Rferguson2]

Edit to above
*Flight left Copenhagen as planned not Dublin Duh

[FaroFlyer]

Like Tom in Scotland I was diverted from HKG (Kai Tak) but to KHH (Kaohsiung) This was in 1993 and I was on a BA flight that had 2 go arounds then we flew off to KHH. The next flight to attempt a landing was the China Airlines flight that went off the end. In the bar that night the captain told us they had to make 2 attempts at landing but could then decide to go elsewhere. Next day, when we saw the China Airlines plane I was glad that he had decided not to try again.

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w8ster, Bullfrog

[ASK1945]

This is a slight variation from the post I made in this Forum 6 years ago, about Madeira.

The runway there was built North-South rather than the more normal East-West for “Atlantic” airports. Returning to the UK we arrived at the airport to be advised that planes were unable to land because of the wind and therefore our incoming BA plane was delayed, so obviously our outgoing one would be also.

We watched as several planes attempted to land but then aborted. Most were diverted to Porto Santo Island 26 miles (42 km) northeast of Madeira, from where a ferry would bring pax to Madeira. Others went back to Lisbon.

I watched from the Exec lounge (on Flight Radar) our BA flight come in from the UK and visually saw the pilot twice attempt to land – both unsuccessfully – as the plane was just 200 or so metres from the runway. I then watched (again on Flight Radar) the flight return to the UK, 4 hours away. We all felt desperate for the poor passengers who would spend another 8 hours (4 hours each way) to get to the their destination.

We had another two days (and nights) vacation in Madeira – at the expense of BA – before the airport opened and we flew home.

[stevescoots]

Had too many to recall over the years. One that stands out was a China southern CAN to LHR that got to LHR but could not land due to weather, ended up going to CDG and while waiting the crew ran out of time. They offloaded us and told us next flight was next day or go to AMS for a KLM flight. Terrible ground handling meant waiting 3 hours to find out what was going on to be told pretty much fend for yourselves until tomorrow, this created a scene that necessitate airport security to probably stop a lynching. Lucky it was one of the very few times I only had hand luggage so while some UK passengers headed to the exit to get the Euro star , I bought a new ticket on AF to LHR and was home in time for tea. Never did understand why CZ could not put us on AF but offered we could go on KLM..if we made our own way there!

[alainboy56]

Although this didn’t happen to me personally, I was there on the island when it occurred, maybe nearly 15 years ago.
I am talking about a QR scheduled flight from Doha to Seychelles.
The usual (old airframe) A320 had arrived over the island early morning, at daybreak.
Unfortunately, there was a squall occurring at that moment. SEZ runway is quite short, and with T/Storms affected by the nearby La Misere mountain, make sheer and choppy landings quite frequent there. The crew made one attempt to land from one end, didn’t like it, so did a loop out over the Indian Ocean and tried from the other end, didn’t like this also, so thought ‘OK 3rd time lucky’ and had one more attempt from the direction as the first one. This also was not to the captain’s liking, and so decided reluctantly to divert.
The diversion alternative for SEZ is Mogadishu and it is some 1400kms+ distance (so I was told). Anyway, the Seychelles route was already on an A320s operation limits and had block times of nearly 5hrs, so with all the ‘gas’ he had wasted making 3 failed approaches, he arrived on hand-over to Mogadishu APP, was given an emergency landing clearance by then basically running only on fumes, and made a safe landing.
They never sent those earlier A320s to Seychelles again and changed to A319ERs from the very next day’s rotation.
I am fairly sure the pax knew nothing about this situation, but I’m positive they relished the experience of that unplanned stop-over in Mogadishu.

[Author]

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