An American Airlines flight from New York to Japan was diverted back to the United States despite being 12 hours into its 14 hour journey.
American Airlines Flight 167, bound for Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport at 10:45 a.m. ET on Monday, according to FlightAware.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft had crossed the entire continental United States and was flying over the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Alaska, when the pilots were forced to turn around, reported The Daily Beast.
Instead of returning to an airport along the West Coast, the plane flew for another five hours, crossing half of the United States, and landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport around 10 p.m. CT.
American Airlines confirmed to Fox 4 that the diversion was due to a maintenance issue.
Outraged passengers aired their grievances with the airline for the disruption on social media.
‘Spent $2500 a person on premium economy from JFK to Tokyo. @AmericanAir diverts us to DFW, reserves us a room in a Super 8 & gives us $12 food vouchers. This is not going to end well,’ one person said.
Business Insider reported that one Reddit user who said they were on the flight claimed there was no meal service on board writing, ‘so we’ve gone 14 hours with only dried snap peas as a snack.’
American Airlines Flight 167, bound for Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, departed from John F. Kennedy International Airport at 10:45 a.m. ET on Monday
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft had crossed the entire continental United States and was flying over the Pacific Ocean when the pilots were forced to turn around
Passengers were reportedly put in a hotel in Texas then departed for Tokyo again the next day.
Last week, a United flight bound for Shanghai was diverted back to California three hours into the trip because the pilot forgot their passport.
UA Flight 198 left Los Angeles International Airport at 1:44 p.m. PT and was scheduled to land at Shanghai Pudong International about 14 hours later until the pilot discovered his disastrous mistake.
The flight was then diverted back to California and landed in San Francisco just after 5 p.m., per flight logs tracked on Flight Aware.
Passengers on the Boeing aircraft 787-9 then finally took off for Shanghai around 9 p.m. and arrived just after 12:30 a.m. local time.
United arranged for a new crew to take the 257 passengers to Shanghai and provided them with meal vouchers and compensation for the inconvenience, the media representative said.
The flight eventually landed at its destination six hours behind schedule, which impacted some of the passengers’ plans.
One passenger, who was flying for business, told CNN, that they had to reschedule their plans for Monday after the significant delay.
Instead of landing at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (pictured) the plane flew an addition five hours and landed at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport
A second traveler said they had to drive another two hours after landing in Shanghai, leaving them exhausted.
Yang Shuhan, another traveler on the flight, said that the pilot announced his embarrassing mistake over the intercom and sounded ‘very frustrated.’
Yang told CNN that she received two meal vouchers totaling $30 to use for a meal at the San Francisco airport.
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Outrage as American Airlines flight from NYC to Tokyo returns to US TWELVE hours into its journey
AloJapan.com