Airline Cancels 70 Flights Over An Issue Most People Would Never Even Think Of
âWe are deeply sorry for the inconvenience,â Finnair said of the approximately 11,000 passengers that were affected.
Don’t worry, it didn’t involve any snakes.
But a Finnish airline has offered a pretty unexpected reason for canceling 70 of its flights — a move that affected around 11,000 customers.
On Wednesday, Finnair — which operates flights between Europe, Asia and North America, with its main hub in Helsinki, Finland — said in a press release it had to temporarily ground eight A321 planes on Oct. 13 over safety concerns about the aircrafts’ installed seat covers.
The airline said it made the move “after having been informed by the manufacturer of the original seat covers that the impact of washing on the fire protection of the seat covers had not been verified in the required manner.”
Finnair noted that “seats are typically washed every two years.”
“The affected seat covers were manufactured by a long-standing Finnair partner, based on specifications provided by the original seat manufacturer,” it said. “The covers have been washed in accordance with the information received from the original seat manufacturer.”
“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience,” Finnair said about the cancellations.
It added that one of its grounded aircrafts is already back in service, and it plans to have all eight running by the end of the month.
Although Finnair’s reason for cancelling its flights is a rare one, it’s by no means the strangest travel hiccup.
In 2023, a Delta flight from Atlanta to Barcelona was delayed for eight hours after the plane had to make a U-turn after a passenger had a severe case of diarrhea.
“It’s just a biohazard issue,” a pilot could be heard saying in an audio transmission between the pilots and air traffic control. “We had a passenger who had diarrhea all the way through the airplane so they want us to come back to Atlanta.”
