Key Points
- Travellers were stuck in Azerbaijan's capital after their Qantas flight to London made an emergency landing.
- A recovery flight left Sydney just before midday on Saturday to pick up stranded passengers in Baku.
- Some passengers took to social media to ask for answers as they faced a nervous wait ahead of Christmas.
Qantas passengers stranded in Azerbaijan's capital are expected to arrive in London in the early hours of Christmas day (local time) after an emergency landing left them stranded.
Travellers were stuck in Baku after their Qantas flight en route to London was forced to land when pilots saw a fault indicator in the cockpit of the Airbus A-380.
Qantas confirmed to SBS News the recovery flight is due to take off shortly, and passengers should make it to Heathrow Airport in time for Christmas.
"It is expected to arrive at Heathrow early on Christmas morning," Qantas said in a statement.
Grounded customers were put up in hotels as Qantas made plans to pull them out of Azerbaijan while a recovery flight was on its way.
But many had taken to social media to ask Qantas for answers as they faced an anxious wait, not knowing if they would be able to get to London in time for Christmas.
"Qantas, could you please give updates for those stuck in Baku?? My mother (first time overseas) is incredibly anxious, to put it mildly," one passenger wrote about 11:30am AEDT on Saturday.
"Also would love if she doesn't end up on a Netflix special. Merry Crisis, everyone!"
"Hey Qantas, I'm one of the GF1 passengers stranded in Baku. Already [lost] one day of my 9 day holiday with family," wrote another just after 1pm.
"Are you going to update us? Am I missing Christmas Eve too?"
An updated statement from Qantas later confirmed a recovery flight was en route to Baku, and had left Sydney at 11:40am AEDT on Saturday.
"The aircraft operating the recovery flight is one of the operational spares that Qantas has on standby over the holiday season to help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this," the statement said.
Engineers were also on their way to Azerbaijan to assess the grounded plane.
“We know this has been a significant disruption for customers ahead of Christmas, however, we will always put safety before schedule. We have apologised and thank them for their patience while we finalised the recovery plans.”
The original flight made the emergency landing at Baku International Airport after sensors warned of smoke in the plane's cargo hold.
However, this has now been attributed to what is likely a faulty sensor as no evidence of smoke was found in the plane's hold.
