Three EU prime ministers stranded after flight to Angola cancels
Major airline Lufthansa has expressed "regret" after leaving the prime ministers of Finland, Denmark, and Luxembourg stranded at Frankfurt airport on Sunday night due to a technical fault.
The three leaders, and EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas, were left waiting on the runway en route to the EU–African Union summit in Luanda, Angola, when their flight failed to take off, according to multiple diplomats, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Finland’s Petteri Orpo eventually made it to Africa with a large delay. Kallas, Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen and Luxembourg’s Luc Frieden called off their trips and stayed in Europe.
“We can confirm that our flight LH560 on 23 November had to be delayed by 13.25 hours due to a non-working passenger announcement system,” Lufthansa spokesperson Boris Ogursky told Euractiv in an emailed statement on Tuesday.
“We regret the inconvenience caused to our affected passengers,” he added.
Ogursky said he could not confirm or deny who was on board for “data privacy reasons”.
He said that a spare aircraft could have been found, but Frankfurt’s 11 p.m. night flying curfew – intended to reduce noise pollution – made any workaround impossible. “The safety of our flight has the highest priority,” he added.
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