Passengers ‘lose hope’ after being stuck on British Airways plane at Heathrow Airport for six hours

Passengers on board a British Airways (BA) flight from Heathrow Airport to Belfast began to “lose hope” after they were stuck on the aircraft for around six hours.

Jurriaan Middelhoff posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, yesterday evening (Monday 2 October) at 7:35pm sharing that he had been on a BA aircraft for five hours. He added a photo to his post showing the view from his passenger window as the plane was stuck on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.

He said in the post on X: “Hey @British_Airways we have been in the plane for 5(!) hrs now @HeathrowAirport. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get a move on?”

Another passenger on the plane, Nikki Rushe, replied to his tweet on X saying: “Will we ever take off do you think?!?”

Mr Middelhoff replied at 8:17pm: “After six hours, beginning to lose hope.”

BA responded to Mr Middelhoff’s initial tweet saying that the airline “apologises for the inconveniences” and had “escalated this matter to the relevant department”.

Mr Middelhoff replied: “Proud of yourself much?”

Another user on X who was waiting at Belfast Airport for this plane to get their flight back to London asked why there was a hold up. Mr Middelhoff posted that there had been “many different excuses” including “a pilot change, no equipment @HeathrowAirport and the weather.”

Nikki Rushe posted on X: “Adverse weather led to needing more fuel then we had to get new pilots, let people off who didn’t want to travel but hopefully we will be heading your way soon.”

At 8:28pm she added that the aircraft was finally moving.

This morning (Tuesday 3 October) BA replied to her tweet saying: “Hi Nikki, I’m sorry for the delay with your flight yesterday.”

The airline told NationalWorld  that major thunderstorms across London and the south east yesterday evening meant restrictions were put in place on how many aircraft could depart and arrive from airports.

A user named Raghavan R had also taken to X yesterday to share his frustration as he was stuck on another BA flight for around six hours at Heathrow Airport.

He said: “Live harrassment by British Airways in London Heathrow airport. Passengers boarded the flight BA277 at 4pm London time and the flight is still here till 8.18pm London time. Passengers are told different reasons over last 4 hours. Not sure of take off time”

“At least serve us some food or let us back in airport. We are in flight for more than four hours.”

He updated his posts to say his flight finally took off at 10pm.