Longer delays again occurred at Innsbruck Airport over the weekend. The Trade Air Fokker 100 stationed on behalf of the tour operator Idealtours repeatedly had to struggle with technical problems. The machine even had to be evacuated on Sunday morning, and then smoke rose from the right rear engine. Things didn't go smoothly at Easyjet and Eurowings Europe either.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, technicians worked on the Fokker 100 operated by Trade Air. However, the problems could not be completely resolved, because on Sunday morning the passengers had to leave the machine immediately after the engines had been started.

About half an hour later, the passengers were able to board again, but this time smoke rose from the right engine of the Fokker 100. The airport fire brigade then approached with three vehicles. The passengers were evacuated in an apron bus. The fire brigade did not extinguish the fire, but was only kept ready as a precaution.

Now technicians set about troubleshooting. A de-icing truck with a lifting platform was also used. The mechanics managed to find and fix the problem. Some time later the tank truck was requested and the passengers could board again and the flights to Kalamata could be carried out.

The chronology of the incident on the Innsbruck Airport webcam:

• 06:30
• 06:40
• 06:50
• 07:00
• 07:10
• 07:20
• 07:30
• 07:40
• 07:50

Due to the technical defect of the Fokker 100, which occurred in Innsbruck on Sunday morning, the machine was delayed by a total of 4,5 hours until the last scheduled flight of the day. The charter connection to Cagliari took off 4,5 hours after the originally planned time.

Easyjet flights delayed over 27 hours

Not only Trade Air had problems in Innsbruck at the weekend, but also the low-cost airline Easyjet. The course pair U28293/U28294 from/to London-Gatwick planned for Saturday could not be carried out as planned. The passengers had to stay in the British capital or in Innsbruck and wait for further information. Replacement flights were only carried out on Sunday. The passengers were therefore delayed by around 27 hours. Easyjet did not provide any information about the cause.

Only recently Innsbruck caused a stir with long delays. At that time, the Fokker 100 from Trade Air make an unscheduled stopover in Zagreb, causing charter flights to be significantly delayed throughout the weekend. Afterwards, airport boss Marco Pernetta said that if you fly from a small regional airport, then that's it the likelihood of delays and cancellations is very low. The Lufthansa subsidiary Air Dolomiti has been canceling Frankfurt-Innsbruck flights particularly often in recent weeks and is operating them instead without passengers as “ghost flights”.

Eurowings Europe with two ferry flights and a long delay

Eurowings Europe fabricated a delay of several hours with the Airbus A319, which bears the registration OE-LYU. Although the plane arrived on time from Lamezia Terme, the originally planned flight from the Tyrolean capital was not carried out on Sunday, but this A319 was transferred by ferry to Salzburg. From there, the medium-haul jet was used to destinations such as Düsseldorf.

Instead, the Airbus A320 with the registration OE-IEU ferry was transferred from Salzburg to Innsbruck on Sunday afternoon. As a result, the departure of the Lamezia-Terme connection planned from Innsbruck was delayed by 6,5 hours. It is unclear why Eurowings decided to take this unusual measure, including two inner-Austrian ferry flights.