In September, a Luxair flight from Malaga to Luxembourg was turned away from Findel airport and sent to Liège at the last minute. Acting Transport Minister François Bausch has clarified the events which led to the deviation, noting that the flight diversion was “inevitable” due to major construction works taking place on Findel’s runway on the evening of 21 September.
The flight from Malaga was turned away from Findel just minutes away from Luxembourg’s airport. However, contrary to reports that the diversion was due to a delay of just four minutes, Bausch said that the aircraft had departed late, delaying the landing to after midnight – over an hour after the night-time construction works commenced at Findel. From 11pm until 6am, Lux-Airport’s runway was closed to permit workers to access the site and continue renovations.
The airport wrote on their website that the window in which to perform the renovations is extremely limited: “Work begins at 11pm and stops at 4.30am to allow cleaning and inspection operations to take place ahead of the day’s flight schedule.”
After consulting both Luxair and airport management, the acting Transport Minister said he learned that three other Luxair flights had been delayed on 21 September, but had been authorised to land at Findel after 11pm that evening. As a consequence, the construction works commenced later than planned.
The 171 passengers on the Malaga flight - which included young children and elderly travellers – finally arrived in Luxembourg at around 5am the next morning, due to difficulties in transporting the passengers from the Belgian airport.
