I was booked on the inbound 162 from TLV yesterday morning. Started by the 163 arriving two hours late after a passenger fell ill during taxi at LHR and the plane went back to the gate.

Once we did board, captain announced there were engineers checking the aircraft due to possible damage following the plane hitting some pretty bad weather coming in (been atrocious here for the past few days). The captain did an excellent job of keeping us well informed throughout, and at some point announced he was now going to walk down the plane for the benefit of anyone who wanted to chat or ask any questions.
From my brief chat with him (as well as with the cabin crew) it seems it was so bad coming in, even the crew operating the outbound were pretty shaken up.

Anyway, a couple of hours into the flight to nowhere, and the captain announces (somewhat baffled mentioning this has never happened him in his entire flying career) Airbus have now advised it's going to take at least 12 hours to determine whether the aircraft if fit to fly, and I don't think he even finished his announcement before I saw the status change to cancelled on the app...

The aircraft which is BA's newest bird (started flying 3 weeks ago...) is still stuck here in TLV, and I'm wondering what knock on effect it's had on any A350 operated routes. I was actually fully expecting last night's 163 to be subbed but it wasn't and nor is tonight's.

https://www.aviation24.be/airlines/i...-aviv-airport/