BA London to Mauritius return to base

[WHBM]

BA 777 Gatwick to Mauritius makes a return to base; nothing particularly unusual about that but it was halfway there, overhead Egypt, when the decision was made. Which makes one wonder what can arise halfway through the cruise that makes one return all that way, rather than either continuing, or needing to land.

British Airways plane makes U-turn four hours into journey due to ‘technical issue’ (msn.com) (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/british-airways-plane-makes-u-turn-four-hours-into-journey-due-to-technical-issue/ar-AA1505O3?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=567b4a4a0e4649c094f0c23647621d35)

It rather gets exacerbated by being blandly informed it is a "technical issue", where unfortunately, the blander it is described, the more it appears to be something very much under the airline's control.

[back to Boeing]

Not read the story and not going to either. But first thought is something that couldn’t easily be fixed in Mauritius and would lead to the a/c being grounded or (and I have no idea if the route requires this but it’s also an option) something that precluded etops entry. And many other options.

[FUMR]

I was once 3 hrs into a 9hr flight when we turned back to base. Captain explained that the tech problem would not stop him from continuing but that the a/c would then become AOG away from base which in itself would cause ops all sorts of logistical problems. We were promised that a spare a/c and crew would be waiting for us. And so it transpired. After 75 mins on the ground we were on our way again. Well organised and at least the pax on the return flight were not inconvenienced any more than we were.

[WideScreen]

Maybe better have a "fresh" aircraft going outbound, the broken aircraft and crew at home, to avoid a fortune on costs due to EC261/2004 for the heavily delayed inbound return. Since the outbound issue happened after departure, the only EC261/2004 costs would be a limited amount of "passenger care", largely in their home country (just send them home) and as such also having far less visa issues to deal with.