- A British Airways flight from Naples, Italy arrived 29 hours late in London, UK.
- Amid a string of setbacks to the flight, a BA crew member cried, a passenger told La Repubblica.
- British Airways said the delay was caused by "technical issue with one of our aircraft."
A British Airways crew member cried amid a string of setbacks that caused a flight to be delayed by 29 hours, a passenger told La Repubblica.
Around 180 passengers were booked onto the flight, from Naples International Airport, Italy to London Heathrow Airport, UK, which was scheduled to depart at 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, the Italian newspaper reported.
Simple Flying reported that passengers boarded the plane as usual and staff prepared for departure, but the captain announced that a problem with one of the electronic displays in the cockpit meant the plane couldn't leave.
Passengers were asked to deplane at 12:14 p.m. to have their lunch in the terminal building and returned at 2:50 p.m., Simple Flying reported. Once back on board, however, the flight still didn't leave.
At 5 p.m., passengers were told the flight had been canceled and were asked again to deplane, Simple Flying said. They were then told they'd been transferred to a flight at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, on the same plane they were originally scheduled to fly on.
Paola Capobianco, a passenger on the flight, told La Repubblica that British Airways provided passengers with hotel accommodation Wednesday night. The next day, they had to go through airport security again and spent around two hours waiting in line, Capobianco said.
But there were further delays after boarding the rescheduled flight, and amid the chaos, one of the air crew started crying, Capobianco said.
The flight landed at Heathrow at 4:40 p.m. local time, according to data from flight-tracking service FlightAware. This was more than 29 hours after its scheduled arrival time of about 11 a.m.
"We apologized to our customers for the delay to their journey due to a technical issue with one of our aircraft," a British Airways spokesperson told Insider. "The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and we would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so."
Airlines have faced operational chaos this summer because of a combination of bad weather, technical problems, and understaffing. This has led to flight delays, cancellations, long lines at security, and lost luggage.
In July, some British Airways passengers told Insider that they got an email while flying from Austin, Texas to Heathrow saying their connecting flight was canceled. Their luggage also went missing.
As well as last-minute delays and cancellations, British Airways preemptively canceled thousands of flights scheduled for this summer. It said this would allow it to consolidate some of its quieter services and "protect as many of our holiday flights as possible."
