Storm Ciara forces British Airways flight to make emergency landing as fuel 'ran close to reserves'

Declaring an emergency is a frequent procedure to minimise risk

A British Airways flight from Geneva to Gatwick has declared an emergency in order to land swiftly, after diverting to Lyon in southern France.

The Airbus A320 operating BA2749 diverted to Lyon “squawked 7700” after spending hours in flight.

The plane took off almost three hours late from the Swiss airport, and flew a holding pattern near Gatwick. But it was unable to land safely, and the decision was taken to fly to Lyon – just 61 miles from where it had started.

Having spent far longer than normal in flight, the plane is thought to have been running close to its fuel reserves – which allow for half-an-hour of flight.

Declaring an emergency is a frequent procedure to minimise risk.

The British Airways operation at its main base, Heathrow, is “unravelling,” according to one passenger caught up in the chaos caused by Storm Ciara.

BA had pre-emptively cancelled about 140 flights – but has now abruptly cancelled dozens more from its hub at Heathrow Terminal 5.

Many of them are long-haul flights, each of them involving hundreds of passengers.

Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose flights have been grounded at short notice, together with multiple flights on BA’s flagship route to New York JFK.

Long-haul links from Heathrow to Accra, Dubai and Lagos are also cancelled.

Andy Hook tweeted: “My second attempted flight to New York (1355) was cancelled one hour before take off. You have five staff airside at Heathrow Terminal 5 trying to serve hundreds. Your app thinks I am on the plane, Your phone lines are down. Advice?”

The link from Gatwick to St Lucia and Trinidad was also cancelled.

Thousands of passengers will be stranded at the other end of these routes.

A spokesperson for BA said: “Like all airlines operating in and out of the UK today, we are being significantly disrupted by Storm Ciara.

“Safety is at the heart of everything we do, and our highly trained team is carefully assessing every flight.

“We’re merging flights to the same destination to minimise disruption, and we’ve got extra customer teams working to help those affected, including a range of flexible rebooking options.”

British Airways is obliged to pay for meals and hotels for all disrupted passengers, and to fly them on the next available flight – even if it is with a rival airline.

Many other carriers are experiencing problems. Emirates flight 15 from Dubai to Gatwick made several attempts at landing before diverting to Zurich.

EK17 from Dubai to Manchester ended up at Frankfurt in Germany.

Wizz Air flights to Luton ended up at a wide range of airports, from Gatwick and Stansted to Birmingham and Newcastle.

The disruption is likely to take days to sort out, and will cost the airlines tens of millions of pounds in care costs, additional flying and lost revenue.