Travelers on European Airlines Awaken in the “Incorrect” Nation as Storm Isha Destroys Flight Paths

Storm Isha caused chaos on flight schedules, causing airline customers all throughout Europe to awaken on Tuesday morning (local time) at incorrect destinations, even in other countries.

Winds gusting as high as 145 km/h tore through runways in the UK and Western Europe, causing cancellations, diversions, and go-arounds. Airports in the UK and Ireland suffered as a result. 166 incoming and outward flights were canceled on Sunday, according to Kevin Cullinane, group director of communications at DAA, the company that runs Dublin Airport, who spoke with broadcaster CNN about this. Additionally, the airport recorded 34 go-arounds and 36 airplane diversions.

Among the airlines most impacted was Ryanair. The storm caused the operator, located in Ireland, to have at least two of its planes land in separate locations.

A Ryanair aircraft from Lanzarote in the Canary Islands was headed to Dublin; however, it had to make an unplanned detour and end up in Bordeaux, France instead of the Irish capital.

The aircraft made no effort at landing.

Another Ryanair aircraft, scheduled to depart from Manchester for Dublin, made a go-around and ended up in Paris Beauvais, extending the scheduled half-hour journey to two and a half hours. For more than three hours, a different aircraft on the same itinerary alternated between the UK and Ireland.

It seemed to circle above Dublin, tried to land in Belfast, and even went over Glasgow before landing in Liverpool, which is just 50 kilometers away from Liverpool.

An easyJet aircraft from Antalya, Turkey, to Manchester had successfully crossed into the United Kingdom and returned to Lyon, France, where it landed safely. A Lufthansa aircraft that was scheduled to arrive in Dublin had to do a go-around and go back to Munich.

A other Ryanair aircraft that was headed from Shannon to Edinburgh made a complete U-turn and ended up in Cologne, Germany, instead of Edinburgh.

According to a blog post by Steve Fox, head of network operations at NATS, the UK’s air traffic control operator, “Isha made its presence felt in the south of England and Ireland, where the winds were gusting 70-75 mph, south-westerly which meant crosswinds at our major airports in the south, with wind shear and turbulence adding extra challenges for flight crews.”