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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Travel
Milo Boyd

British Airways crew member 'on first day at work' makes horror mistake costing £50k

A British Airways flight attendant accidentally activated a Boeing 777's emergency slide on the first day of their job, it was reported.

However work-hardened and experienced you are, turning up for the first day of a new job is never easy.

Learning to navigate a new work space, figuring out the hierarchy and landing on the right level of office-chic are all easier said than done.

According to one report, a BA cabin crew member had a first day that makes these worries seem quite insignificant.

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The slide was accidentally inflated, it was reported (Twitter/MZulqarnainBut1)
The incident caused a several hour delay (Twitter/MZulqarnainBut1)

A giant Boeing 777-200ER was being pushed back from Terminal Five at London's Heathrow Airport when the incident occurred last week.

The aircraft was due to take off, bound for Lagos, Nigeria, at 10.10am, only for the large emergency slide to be activated

It took several hours for the slide to be returned to its normal position and for emergency procedures to end. Frustrated passengers faced a four-hour wait.

The whole incident ended up costing £50,000, according to The Sun, and was caused by a flight attendant on their first day by mistake.

The cost is roughly twice the starting salary of a BA flight attendant.

The airline said it had provided passengers with food and drink vouchers during the wait and apologised for the incident.

“The aircraft returned to stand and customers disembarked normally. We apologised to customers for the inconvenience caused, provided them with refreshment vouchers and arranged a replacement aircraft so that they could continue their journey as planned,” said a BA spokesperson.

The newbie starter was replaced in the new flight crew which took the passengers on to Nigeria later that day, it was reported.

An insider told the Sun: “It’s inexplicable that this could happen.”

The same aircraft was actually back in service later that day, taking passengers from Heathrow Airport to Bermuda, returning just a few hours later.

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