Boris Johnson‘s father Stanley has slammed officials for refusing to allow him off a diverted plane when it landed at Heathrow – causing the entire flight to be cancelled.
The writer, 83, was aboard BA2641 from Malaga to London Gatwick on Friday when it was diverted to Heathrow due to a temporary runway closure.
The Airbus A321 was due to refuel before making the short flight to Gatwick when the runway reopened, but Mr Johnson and two other passengers wanted to get off.
This reportedly led to the plane missing its departure slot and being cancelled, with all passengers forced to disembark and catch a connecting bus to Gatwick.
Mr Johnson has strongly defended his actions and insisted the pilot invited passengers to disembark at Heathrow before ‘airport authorities’ decided ‘this could not be allowed to happen’.
He also insisted he was helping a woman who was ‘terrified’ about getting back on the plane after losing her husband in a plane accident.
Stanley Johnson, pictured last year in London, was aboard BA2641 from Malaga to London Gatwick on Friday when it was diverted to Heathrow due to a temporary closure of the runway
The Airbus A321 was due to refuel before making the short flight to Gatwick when the runway reopened, but Mr Johnson and two other passengers wanted to leave. File photo
The Malaga flight was one of 16 that had to be diverted after a separate British Airways plane was unable to take off at Gatwick, causing the runway to be closed for 50 minutes.
Passengers told The Independent that Mr Johnson – who splits his time between London and Somerset – was among three passengers who wanted to get off after the plane landed at Heathrow.
A woman called Annemarie said this led to a row, with the former MEP and the other passengers ‘getting quite irate… hence the police’ before the flight was eventually cancelled.
But Mr Johnson has since written an op-ed for The Independent defending himself against criticism and insisting he did the right thing.
He wrote: ‘As we landed at Heathrow, the captain informed us that after we had taken on some fuel, we would make the ”short hop” back to Gatwick. He went on to invite any passengers without luggage in the hold to disembark at Heathrow if they wanted to.
‘I grabbed my bags from the rack and went to the forward entrance of the plane. Two other passengers joined me and the three of us stepped out of the door onto the top of the metal stairs which were already in place.
‘All we had to do, I imagined, was to wait for the ground transport to arrive to take us into the terminal building. That was the mistake.’
Mr Johnson said he and the other two passengers were not allowed to walk towards the terminal because Gatwick was the flight’s official destination.
He said he ‘suspects’ that he would have ‘allowed myself’ to be escorted back onto the plane, but took pity on a woman who said she had recently lost her husband in an air accident and was refusing to get back onboard.
All flights were temporarily suspended at Gatwick Airport on Friday afternoon after a British Airways flight was forced to an emergency stop on the runway
The father of the former Prime Minister added that he was unsure why police had to be called.
Officials eventually decided to redefine the flight ‘as a Malaga to Heathrow flight’, he said, which ‘effectively meant’ the original flight to Gatwick was cancelled.
Mr Johnson said he was ‘truly sorry for the inconvenience caused to other passengers’ but insisted he was glad that he ‘stood my ground’ and said he was thanked by ‘the poor woman whose husband had just died in an air crash’.
Friday’s incident at Gatwick caused widespread chaos after all flights had to be temporarily suspended.
BA2279 had been due to leave for Vancouver before it was forced to do a ‘high-speed emergency stop’ – leaving the Boeing 777 jet blocking the runway.
Video footage taken from passengers onboard the flight showed fire engines making their way over to the stationary plane, with travellers being told take-off had been ‘aborted’.
The airport’s runway was forced to close following a ‘rejected take-off’, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. The website reported the closure at 12.53pm, reopening at 1.14pm.
A British Airways spokesperson said at the time: ‘Our pilots took the precautionary decision to cancel take-off due to a technical issue. Safety is always our top priority and we apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused.’
It marked yet another hiccup this week for families trying to get away for the summer, with families flying from Birmingham Airport facing long queues due to delays at a new £60million security hall.
British Airways and Heathrow have been contacted for comment in relation to the incident involving Stanley Johnson.
Stanley and Boris together in 2019 when Boris was a candidate for the Tory leadership. Johnson senior has vehemently disagreed with his son over Brexit