London and Paris are two of Europe’s busiest cities for both business and leisure travelers. As such, while compelling high-speed rail options are available in the form of the Eurostar, strong air connectivity is also required for this city pair. BA308 is one of seven daily flights between London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG), but, yesterday, it never reached the French capital.

Indeed, adverse weather in and around Paris meant that G-TNEA, the Airbus A321neo operating the service, had to divert back to London. According to tracking data made available by Flightradar24, this ‘flight to nowhere,’ ended up spending more than two hours in the sky, even though this service is only usually airborne for around 45 minutes. Let’s examine what happened and why the flight diverted.

BA308’s Flight To Nowhere

Credit: Simple Flying Flight Tracker

British Airways flight BA308 is scheduled to depart from the UK flag carrier and oneworld founding member’s main hub at London Heathrow Airport at various different times throughout the afternoon, depending on the exact day of the week. Per Flightradar24, yesterday’s iteration was a 3:05 PM departure, and it was scheduled to reach Paris one hour and 25 minutes later at 5:30 PM local time.

However, this did not prove to be the case. Indeed, having already had to take off from London Heathrow Airport almost two hours late, at 5:03 PM local time, when the flight landed, it did not do so in Paris, but, rather, back in the British capital at 7:12 PM. This was because of adverse weather in and around Paris, which resulted in considerable congestion for inbound flights. A BA spokesperson told Simple Flying:

“It returned to Heathrow due to weather in the Paris area, which led to excessive holding. Our teams looked after our customers, providing overnight accommodation and rebooking them on the next available flight.”

Flights To & From London & Paris Faced Extensive Disruption Yesterday

Credit: Lightning Maps

The adverse weather in question was a band of thunderstorms that swept across France yesterday afternoon. The spread of the resulting lightning strikes is seen in the map above, with Paris being located in the yellow circle. BA’s flights from London Heathrow Airport to CDG were pretty unfortunate on the whole yesterday: of the seven, two ran on time, two were axed, two ran late, and one was diverted.

With that being said, the UK flag carrier was far from the only airline to have its Parisian operations disrupted by yesterday’s adverse weather. Indeed, data made available by FlightAware shows that, while only 18 departures and 18 arrivals were canceled at CDG, some 314 departures (40%) and 333 arrivals (42%) were delayed. Paris Orly Airport (ORY) also saw 173 (51%) of its departures run late.

As it happens, things were no better in London, where weeks of unrelenting dry heatwave conditions have given way to cooler and wetter weather. Indeed, despite cancelations being low, London’s Gatwick (LGW), Heathrow, and Luton (LTN) airports all had three-figure delay totals for both arrivals and departures. According to the BBC, Luton Airport’s air traffic control systems were impacted by lightning strikes.

The Aircraft Involved Had More Luck Flying To Paris Today

Credit: Shutterstock

Naturally, G-TNEA’s inability to reach Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport on account of yesterday’s weather meant that the return flight, BA309, also had to be canceled. The aircraft operated one more flight yesterday, namely BA764 to EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg (BSL) in eastern France, near the border with Switzerland and Germany. It arrived there around half an hour late, at 11:10 PM local time.

As luck would have it, after the aircraft’s early-morning return flight from Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg to London Heathrow Airport today, its next return trip took it back to Paris CDG. This was a more successful affair than yesterday’s attempt, with BA302 landing in the French capital at 11:13 AM local time, just 18 minutes behind schedule. The return leg, BA303, touched down in London at 12:49 PM local time.