Jottings
News from the UK and around the World
. . . the wild, the wacky, the wonderful, the weird and the downright infuriating
Flying for Dummies
It’s 7.47 am on Monday, March 25, and
British Airways flight BA3271 takes off
from London City Airport. A few
moments before landing at 9.00 am, the
cabin crew advises passengers that the
aircraft is on its final approach to
Edinburgh Airport. This is somewhat
unfortunate because they had all booked
to fly to Düsseldorf.
BA later explained that the pilot on the
service - operated by Germany-based
WDL Aviation on a “wet lease”
arrangement with BA - was given a flight
plan which directed him to the Scottish
capital. So that’s where he went. Well, he
would, wouldn’t he? Following grovelling
apologies to the passengers, the aircraft
was refuelled and set off from
Edinburgh at 10.30 am on its second
attempt to reach Germany, this time
with more success. Later that day,
someone at Ryanair unwisely seized a
chance to mock British Airways. The
Irish budget airline poked fun on
Twitter with a message to BA which
read, “Hey, we have a present for you,”
accompanied by a mock-up of a book
cover which read, “Geography for
Dummies.”
However, Ryanair’s jest backfired
spectacularly. First, BA responded with a
Tweet, “Now, now. No one is perfect,”
which generated a quick response from
Ryanair which read, “Even we wouldn’t
flog Edinburgh as Germany
#DusseldorfNorth.” And that opened the
floodgates. Ryanair passengers joined in
24
with book titles making fun of the
carrier’s dubious reputation in some
areas. These included, “Employment
Law for Dummies,” “Customer Service
for Dummies” and “Landing Airplanes
for Dummies.”
Several also resurrected details of a
Ryanair flight from Liverpool in March
2016 which landed at a military base five
miles away from the intended
destination of Derry in Northern
Ireland, an incident which the carrier
had described as “pilot error.” Another
Tweet mentioned Ryanair flight FR8582
which was due to fly from London to
Thessaloniki in Greece in January. It
landed in Timisoara, Romania, 500
miles and two international frontiers
from its scheduled destination, and the