«250 euros if you get off»- Corriere.it

Strong winds and an airport subject to various restrictions prompted the crew of a flight to ask some passengers who had already embarked to get off voluntarily and in exchange for 250 euros in compensation to lighten the plane and be able to take off safely. It happened on Thursday 9 March after lunch on the Ita Airways London City (London airport)-Milan Linate connection which was carrying several Italian journalists and AC Milan fans returning from the Champions League match against Tottenham.

The wet lease

Technically the flight was operated by German Airways, a company from which Ita rents small aircraft (Embraer 190) that can land and take off from a short runway like that of London City. The contract is known in jargon as wet lease and consists of the lease of the aircraft and personnel. The AZ227 connection should have departed at 13.45 (local time, 14.45 in Italy) but the difficult weather conditions made it necessary to lighten the jet by letting some people get off.

The offer for passengers: 250 euros if you get off

At the beginning – the journalists tell with videos and posts on social media – the crew looked for 5 volunteers (4 men and a woman), then they raised the number to 6 (5 men and a woman) promising 250 euro vouchers. In the video made by the sports reporter Alessandro Alciato, colleague Alessia Tarquinio is seen translating the request for all passengers. In another video the journalist and TV presenter Gianluigi Nuzzi intervenes: We’ve been stuck in the plane for two hours because, they say, it’s windy and the plane weighs too much, he comments.

700 kilos too much

The excess weight, it was estimated, was around 700 kilograms considering the people to be removed and their luggage. Faced with the failure in the search for volunteers, it was up to Tarquinio to communicate the risk of the hard line. If these six volunteers do not come out, Ita decides on the basis of the cost of the ticket incurred. So those who paid less will probably stay here, translated the journalist. Adding that the six disembarked would have been transferred to the other London airport, Heathrow, to be taken to Milan on board another flight.

Company note

Eventually the volunteers were found and the flight took off at 16.30 (17.30 Italian time) and landed at 19.12 in Linate. The event depended on the weather conditions in the English capital – which were already critical from the beginning of the day due to strong winds and rain – and which led to additional operational limitations on the only runway of the airport which became usable due to the wind, explains Ita in a note sent to the Courier.

The motivations

When all the customers had already boarded on time – reconstructs the company – the local air traffic control signaled a significant variation in the direction and intensity of the wind forcing the crew to change the direction of take-off, which limitation of the maximum take-off weight of about 700 kilos. British Airways has canceled a flight due to weather conditions.

The decision

Ita – continues the tricolor airline – in spite of itself therefore had to disembark 7 customers by immediately operating in the best possible way to protect passengers. The company also communicates that the management of passengers on board by German Airways does not correspond in any way to the professionalism and efficiency of all the staff of the national airline and does not comply with what was agreed in the existing contract with Ita.

The stopover and the limitations

London City is the smallest airport in the British capital. Given its location within the city, the runway is only 1,508 meters long (less than half of those at Heathrow) and 30 wide. Not only that: the presence of skyscrapers nearby requires a steeper climb than normal and for this reason the pilots must have special qualifications. Restrictions are also imposed on aircraft that cannot be too large, so Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s cannot fly at the airport.