Unusual. Friday morning, passengers on a flight Southwest Airlines flying from Dallas to Kansas City made an impromptu and unscheduled stopover in Wichita to drop off a flight attendant who had to work on another flight.
Southwest Airlines flight WN-872 took off from Dallas Love Field around 7:30 a.m. on Friday, but instead took an hour-long flight north to Kansas Citythey first found themselves at Wichita so that only one flight attendant can disembark. Once dropped off, the Boeing 737 was able to proceed to its intended destination in Kansas City, where passengers arrived with three quarters of an hour delay.
Explaining what happened to the media View from the Wing, a Southwest spokesperson said a flight was scheduled to operate from Wichita on Friday morning, but the service was missing a flight attendant who was part of the minimum quota of crew. Southwest had no other flight specifically destined for Wichita that morning, and with no crew in the area, the only option was to drop in Express delivery a flight attendant. Southwest therefore estimated that the flight from Dallas to Kansas City would cause the least disruption despite this unscheduled stopover.
Earlier this month, British airline TUI Airways sent passengers on a four-hour detour to drop off a spare part for a plane stuck in Tunisia due to a technical problem. There spare part had been flown from the UK to Calabria in southern Italy, meaning the flight back to Britain had to first stop in Tunisia. TUI offered customers on the delayed flight free refreshments and confirmed they would be eligible for compensation under EU and UK air passenger rules.
