Lufthansa’s budget carrier Eurowings had a truly embarrassing moment last week when one of its flights had to turn around and go home because no one had checked whether its destination airport was open for business—and it wasn’t.
Eurowings Flight 9844 was bound for the Sardinian town of Olbia, Italy from Düsseldorf, and was within 90 minutes of landing when the pilot was told that that Olbia was closed due to commercial traffic because of coronavirus pandemic restrictions.
The airport had actually been re-opened for service on May 17 by Italy’s national infrastructure and transport ministry, but it was then overruled by regional officials. Eurowings was apparently unaware of the second action.
After circling for a while as decisions were made, including possible alternate airports, the plane reversed course and flew back to Düsseldorf, a flight of a bit over four hours. Few passengers were actually inconvenienced by the maneuver—because the A320 was only carrying two passengers.
