BA accused of misleading passengers
15.05.10
BA has been accused of misleading passengers after blaming the ash cloud for cancelling flights yesterday, the Press & Journal reports. The airline said it cancelled and diverted flights on safety grounds, but other airlines’ flights ran as planned and the UK’s aviation safety body, the air traffic control service and airport officials all said the airspace was perfectly safe.
The airline grounded its two early-morning flights to Aberdeen and told passengers that the city’s airport was closed because of a the ash cloud. The two return flights then had to be cancelled too, because the aircraft were stuck in London. A flight from Heathrow to Edinburgh was also cancelled, while another was diverted to Glasgow.
A passenger told the newspaper that BA staff had been adamant that Aberdeen Airport was closed, despite other passengers telephoning the airport to discover it was operating normally. He said that he suspected the airline had misled passengers because it wanted to operate fewer, fuller flights, although BA denied this.
A spokeswoman for Aberdeen Airport told the newspaper that the information BA was giving its passengers was wrong. She said: ‘We are not affected by ash and we have been fine all day, as has the rest of UK airspace. BA said there were areas that they were not prepared to fly through – but everyone else has.’
A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said that BA was the only airline to cancel flights. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said that airlines were given no warning of volcanic ash in the skies anywhere in the UK.
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