Birmingham Airport latest: Thousands of passengers still disrupted after plane’s emergency landing closes runway – UK Times

The Independent’s Travel Correspondent Simon Calder reports:

Ten hours after Birmingham airport reopened, weary passengers are struggling to reach their holiday destinations or to return home.

After dozens of diversions and cancellations on Wednesday, further flights on Thursday are grounded or heavily delayed.

The 6am KLM flight to Amsterdam was cancelled because the aircraft and crew could not reach Birmingham on Wednesday. Many departures are delayed as a result of the runway closures, which saw planes diverted as far away as Liverpool, Cardiff and Gatwick.

The Wednesday evening Emirates arrival from Dubai, using the biggest aircraft serving Birmingham, landed in Stansted initially before flying on to the West Midlands airport. The return leg took off at midnight, over two hours late, inevitably resulting in missed connections for many passengers who were planning to connect in Dubai for Asian and Australasian destinations.

Jet2 passengers heading for the Greek island of Zante on Wednesday will arrive three hours late, with a two-hour delay facing holidaymakers with the airline heading for Menorca.

Travellers returning to Birmingham faced some extreme delays overnight. Ryanair passengers from Dublin and Malta were four hours late, while a Tui plane from Palma was five hours behind schedule.

Under air passengers’ rights rules, no compensation is payable because the cause was beyond the airlines’ control.

The Beechcraft B200 Super King Air can carry nine passengers and is used in various roles, including as an air ambulance, and for special missions.

It first entered production in 1981 and followed its predecessor the Model 101, which was designed in 1969.

Beechcraft is an American aviation manufacturer headquarted in Wichita, Arkansas.

According to its website, Birmingham Airport is the seventh-largest airport in the UK and the third largest outside London, handling approximately 11.5 million passengers in 2023.

By 2033, it hopes to increase this figure by 50 per cent to reach 18 million.

Home to around 30 airlines, it offers over 130 direct routes and over 450 one-stop destinations from its one terminal.

A Beechcraft B200 Super King Air was also involved in a plane crash at London Southend Airport in July, which killed four people on board.

Zeusch Aviation, based at Lelystad Airport in the Netherlands, confirmed its SUZ1 flight had been “involved in an accident”.

Zeusch Aviation’s website says the plane can be used for medical flights to transport patients or organs. It has also been deployed for aerial mapping flights.

Birmingham Airport first said at around 2.40pm that its runway was temporarily closed following the incident.

It later suggested flights would remain grounded until at least 8pm.

In an update posted on X shortly before 8pm on Wednesday evening, the airport said: “Following the aircraft incident today, the runway has reopened and operations have resumed.”

It apologised for the disruption caused by the incident and said passengers must check flight details and follow advice issued by their airlines.

The Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) has said it has started an investigation into the incident, with “a multi-disciplinary team including inspectors with expertise in aircraft operations, engineering and recorded data” deployed to Birmingham Airport.

Woodgate Aviation has said it will cooperate with Air Accident Investigators and airport services.

If you are flying from a UK/EU airport or on a British/ European airline and have your flight cancelled – or are delayed in arrival by at least three hours – the presumption is that you are owed hundreds of pounds in compensation.

The payment depends on distance:

• Under 1,500km, for example London to Barcelona: £220 or €250
• 1,500-3,500km, such as Manchester-Lisbon: £350 or €400
• Above 3,500km, eg Birmingham-Dubai: £520 or €600. If a long-haul arrival delay is between three and four hours, the compensation is halved.

The only way the airline can avoid paying out is by demonstrating “extraordinary circumstances” were responsible.