Last Saturday, 170 people wanted to fly from Vienna to Tehran in an Iran Air Airbus A300. But the journey was already chaotic on the apron and on top of that, the passengers even had to spend the night on the plane.

The plane was supposed to take off towards the capital of Iran at around 11 a.m., but this was not possible for technical reasons. The captain canceled the flight for safety reasons. According to a media report in the free newspaper Heute, which refers to a passenger, the travelers are said to have been on board the jet for two hours by this time.

Iran Air flew in a replacement aircraft, but it did not arrive until 0:30 a.m. the following day. The odyssey did not end there, because passengers on this plane had to wait around two hours. Allegedly the crew declared that they were waiting for the take-off permit. That soon turned out to be a delaying tactic, because then the cat was let out of the bag: the plane is not ready for take-off and help cannot come before 5:00 a.m.

Specifically, it was explained to the passengers that de-icing is necessary. However, due to the time of year, this was not immediately available and had to be set up by Vienna Airport first. According to the media report, the passengers were not able to leave the Airbus.

Airport and Iran Air push each other the "buck". Iran Air claims that the airport did not provide buses. A spokesman for Austria's largest airport does not want this to apply and points out that the captain did not announce the de-icing in advance. The technicians and equipment first had to be provided, which took a lot of time. Since it was foreseeable when the machine would be ready to take off, the airline decided not to de-board.

On Sunday, shortly before 6:00 a.m., the Iran Air Jet was actually ready to take off and was able to leave Vienna Airport with 170 passengers in the direction of Tehran. The travelers will probably not forget their night on the apron in an A300 anytime soon.

The flight connection IR716 was affected. This should be done with the IR-IBB. Due to an AOG, the IR-IBC ferry was transferred to Vienna. Both aircraft mentioned are Airbus A300B4-605R.