Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. I'm in beautiful Bristol on a very sunny afternoon on my way to Bristol Airport for a flight which I trust is going to take off and fly to where it's supposed to. Unlike a number of flights over the weekend and I want to talk today about turnbacks. This is where

your flight takes off as normal. You're going along, you think great, you're already mentally,

where you are supposed to be heading, looking forward to that reunion, that drink, that experience,

that site. Whatever it is, you suddenly either find

that you're turning back or you are told, sorry, there's a problem we've got to turn back,

and outline what happened to three British Airways flights from Heathrow on Saturday.

And then there was another BA flight on Sunday from London City so

the problems began on British Airways flight 263 that goes from Heathrow to Riyadh the capital

of Saudi Arabia took off a little bit late about quarter to three in the afternoon

and about half past four while it was flying over the

Croatian coast the airline the aircraft turned back flew back to its starting point

eventually touching down about four hours after it had started on this flight to nowhere

now the issue was all to do with the traffic collision avoidance system,

which is an important piece of kit, as you will accept. It makes sure that aircraft do not collide,

or that's its aim. The fact that one system has failed should not worry people. There are backups, but the Saudi

regulations are very strict on this. Somebody obviously spotted there was a problem and the plane

went back. They passengers taken off, put up in hotels overnight and then they finally flew out

Sunday morning. They were 21 hours late later than they were expecting to be,

but they were better off than the people who were waiting in Saudi Arabia,

possibly already, as I would be salivating about that nice cold beer

as soon as you clear Saudi airspace,

they found that they were actually

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