- A British Airways flight lasted nine hours but ended up back where it started after a technical issue.
- The Boeing 787 reached Newfoundland before turning back across the Atlantic to London Heathrow.
- The flight returned home as it is usually easier, and cheaper, to fix problems at a base airport.
Dozens of British Airways passengers endured a nine-hour "flight to nowhere" after crossing the Atlantic twice.
Monday's Flight 195 took off from London Heathrow for Houston about 30 minutes late, per data from Flightradar24.
After five hours, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner reached the coast of Newfoundland — but only as it began to turn around.
Four hours later, the jet was back in London, having flown around a 4,600-mile round trip.
In a statement shared with Business Insider, a British Airways spokesperson said the flight returned "as a precaution due to a minor technical issue."
"We've apologized to our customers for the disruption to their journey," they added.
British Airways has also rebooked them onto the next available flights, provided hotels, and details on how to claim for other expenses.
Going all the way back across the Atlantic may seem like a strange decision, but the problem was minor enough to allow it to reach Heathrow, where BA has a maintenance facility.
For both passengers and the airline, that's likely preferable to a diversion to northern Canada.
Last December, Delta Air Lines sent three jets to rescue passengers from a remote military base in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The flight had diverted there following a technical issue, but freezing conditions and limits on how long the flight crews could work left passengers stranded there for over 24 hours. The 270 passengers stayed overnight at the military barracks.
In a similar incident, an Air France flight from Paris to Seattle was forced to divert to Canada's far north last month. Another flight had to be canceled in order to rescue the passengers from Iqaluit, the capital of Canada's Nunavut territory, which has a population of less than 8,000.
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