At least Facebook has the story with pictures of an A320/321, 747 and A380.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...d-upgrade.html

Yes it seems the article is more BA bashing about other things.
Really curious to have the real facts of this story. Did they get involuntarily downgraded?

So... Which was it?

https://s18.postimg.cc/xenk6qtxl/which.png

Not that it matters. But it makes me wonder about the validity of the story.

One assumes it must have been a serious 'spat' for the pilot to divert, then return to LGW, inconveniencing 2 plane loads of passengers.

If safe to continue surely that would have been the best option.

Not to mention the cost to BA.

Registering an aircraft G-VIIP is just asking for trouble though.

I wont go into the protocols but for it to get to diversion stage then the "spat" would have been very serious with the crew feeling that there was a danger of (or actual) physical violence, or other passengers were being endangered.

Indeed. Makes me think there is more to this than apparent from initial reports.

While domestic flights in the US seem to divert more frequently in case of unruly passengers, I'm pretty sure that crews on long haul flights will almost definitely try to avoid diverting. If they had to divert, it's almost certain that there was no alternative to that.

It's certainly a strange story. I suspect that there may be more to it and that the desire to change seats appeared only inflight. Otherwise, why fly so far before deciding to unload the couple?

I definitely like that BA did not simply return to London, but dropped the couple off in the middle of the ocean.

Unclear terminology by Air Force spokesman! ;)

G-VIIP is a 3-class, 40J, so "First Class" is just a figure of speech rather than actuality in BA terms.

[/pedant] :)

Probably no other realistic option - if the incident was serious enough to divert, and had therefore gone beyond the stage where even restraint was an option, I imagine the captain and crew wanted those passengers off the aircraft as quickly as possible before they caused a very serious problem.

In all incidents such as these I feel most sorry for the affected passengers. Crew are at least trained to deal with this, but most passengers are not, and at the end they are arguably the most affected - both in terms of trauma at the time and disruption in the aftermath. All we can hope, if the supposition of fault on the part of the offloaded passengers is correct, is that very stern action is taken against them and they don't have the opportunity to fly for a while.

That'll just be the Air Force spokesman, in a foreign language, using colloquial language not specifc. I think it'll be business class.

I'd love to know just how abusive and violent they were to get thrown off in the Azores. I hope nobody agrees to fly them back from there. It'll be a long walk.

And I wish fellow passengers and the airline could claim damages from them.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3106/...a4f368a1d4.jpg
:D:D

Yes, and indeed a civil case would be interesting and most likely successful in terms of proving loss of enjoyment. The trouble is, of course, the chance of actually extracting money from the problem passengers would be a barrier. You could have the satisfaction of most likely sending them into bankruptcy, I suppose, but that's just throwing good money after bad.

Although we do not know the full story, the event will have caused inconvenience to may people as well as the inevitable costs.

The event would also have been upsetting for the passengers seated nearby and the cabin crew involved.