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Hundreds of passengers have endured extreme disruption after the runway at Glasgow airport closed for 72 minutes on Tuesday afternoon.
A light-weight plane believed to belong to Glasgow Flying Membership blocked the runway after experiencing difficulties on touchdown at 3.48pm.
The runway reopened at 5pm, however not earlier than a minimum of seven inbound flights had diverted.
Diversions to Edinburgh, 42 miles to the east, started virtually directly.
Three easyJet planes – from Gatwick, Faro in Portugal and Barcelona – diverted to the Scottish capital. They had been joined by Jet2 from Tenerife, Ryanair from Malaga, Tui from Rhodes, Lufthansa from Frankfurt and British Airways from Heathrow.
At 5.10pm, a KLM flight from Amsterdam that had been holding for 20 minutes additionally diverted to Edinburgh. An estimated 1,100 passengers have up to now arrived on the incorrect airport.
Cancellations have begun: with Lufthansa selecting to not await Glasgow to reopen, the return flight to Frankfurt won’t function.
Departures are all closely delayed. The final airplane to get away is believed to be a British Airways flight to Heathrow that took off at 3.44pm.
With round 20 departures properly not on time, the disruption is more likely to take many hours to clear. One concern is that some crew might go “out of hours” if they don’t depart quickly on lengthy flights to locations together with the Canary Islands and the Greek islands of Kos and Crete.
A spokesperson for the airport stated: “Operations have resumed following an earlier incident involving a lightweight plane at 1548 attended by emergency providers.
“The airfield was reopened at 5pm and operations returned to regular. We thank passengers for his or her endurance throughout this incident.”
Below air passengers’ rights guidelines, travellers whose flights are cancelled are entitled to be flown to their vacation spot as quickly as potential on any airline, and to be supplied with meals and resorts till they get there.
These delayed by two hours or extra on quick flights are entitled to refreshments on the airport.
Hundreds extra Scottish passengers at airports across the UK and Europe might be ready for some hours for the delayed outbound flights to deliver them house.
In August 2025, a stricken gentle plane closed the runway at Birmingham airport for seven hours.
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