After 7-hour nightmare, flight with 300 passengers lands back at its original take-off point in Japan

A Japanese airline which took off from Tokyo to land at Fukuoka airport faced last-minute changes before its departure because of which the delayed flight missed the commercial flights' curfew time and was forced to return back to its departure point.

Around 300 domestic flight passengers faced a nightmare in Japan after their two-hour flight was turned into a seven-hour ordeal because the flight missed the "deadline" of the destination airport. According to the schedule, Japan Airlines Co. flight JL331 was to depart from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport at 6:30 pm local time for a two-hour journey to reach Fukuoka, however, because of the last-minute plane switch, the takeoff faced a delay of around 90 minutes, reported Bloomberg reported.

ALSO READ | Air India passengers, stranded in Sweden, set to fly back to Delhi on Friday

Add WION as a Preferred Source

As a result, the airline missed the 10 pm curfew time for commercial planes at the airport and had to fly back to its original departure point. The crisis took place despite the earlier expectations of officials that the flight would land with 4 minutes to spare, said the airline in a statement.

According to Fukuoka airport officials, the airport officials do make exceptions for congestion or bad weather, allowing the delayed flight past the curfew time, however, while speaking to Asahi Shimbun newspaper, the official said that they didn’t regard this delay in the landing of the flight as “unavoidable”.

After missing the 10 pm curfew time of the airport, the airline went on a roundabout journey, taking 335 passengers to Tokyo again. The Bloomberg report stated that initially, the officials were considering re-routing the flight to the nearest city of Kitakyushu, however, because they were facing difficulty in arranging accommodation at the last minute for the 335 passengers travelling onboard, the plan was cancelled.

The plane was then landed at 10:59 pm at Kansai International Airport near Osaka, which was around 450 kilometres away from their original destination, added the report citing the airline officials. However, the passengers suffering did not come to an end as this destination lacked the accommodation arrangement for all the passengers and hence, the pilot took off the flight with 335 passengers again onboard.

WATCH | UK: Airline Flybe goes into administration, cancels all flights

On Monday's pre-dawn, the flight finally landed back in the capital city of Japan after a journey of around seven hours and at the same place where it took off. The airline said that the passengers were compensated by making payments for taxis and hotels. The airlines also paid in cash and replacement flight to make up for the horrid travelling experience of the customers.

(With inputs from agencies)

You cannow write for wionews.comand be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with ushere.

WATCH WION LIVE HERE