A British Airways flight to Barbados was delayed for 5 hours due to inadequate toilet roll stock, and a shortage of headphones. The initial supplies problem then caused the crew to go out of hours, so the delay increased to 5 hours while a new crew was arranged. The flight eventually departed in the early hours of Monday, instead of Sunday evening when it was scheduled to leave.

One of the delayed passengers, Jane Gwizdala, reports that the captain was very candid about the reason for the delay, “He told us the outbound Gatwick to Bridgetown plane wasn’t prepared satisfactorily. He said in 26 years of flying he had never had such an experience that impacted on crew and passengers.”

The following rotation of the plane was also delayed, heading back to Gatwick, which means BA could face a total compensation bill of almost £300,000 for the two planeloads of passengers. Due to the cause of the delay and the details of the flights, passengers claiming should receive 600 Euros each under EU rules.

A spokesperson for BA said, “We are sorry customers were delayed after some of the many items needed for the flight weren’t loaded on to the aircraft. We gave customers refreshment vouchers so they could get something to eat and drink in the terminal and we got them away on their holidays as soon as we could.”