Airplane passengers and crew due to arrive in London on Christmas morning are suffering through a 48-hour flight delay - but have employed a ‘bit of Dunkirk spirit’ to cope with an emergency landing amid fire fears.
The Qantas flight from Singapore to London Heathrow had been due to land shortly after 6am yesterday.
However, passengers now won’t make it in until Christmas morning itself after some huge delays.
This comes as train strikes threatened to throw countless Brits' trips home into chaos today as Border Force strikes risked massive queues at the country's airports.
The Qantas flight was forced into an emergency landing in Azerbaijan after a warning light indicated a fire might have broken out in the cargo hold.
Clare Kennett from West Sussex described the frustration of the long wait she and other passengers had to endure.
But she said the captain had done the right thing in making a diversion to land elsewhere and get the plane checked out.
The 63-year-old former IT consultant-turned-chilli farmer praised the Qantas crew, but said information had been lacking from the company in the early stages of the delay.
She said passengers spent hours at Baku airport awaiting visas so they could go to a hotel, and were also left wondering about the wait for a relief plane to take them to London.
Ms Kennett, who had enjoyed a three-week holiday which involved surprising her sister in Melbourne for her birthday, said they were left with "no explanation" as to what was going on for a period of time at the hotel, adding that there were "a lot of people very upset".
She said: "Qantas as a company have just sent short factual emails which appears very cold at Christmas.
"We were all very frustrated by the 10 or 11 hours that a lot of people spent at the airport. The crew were great. They gave us food, were talking to us, they were playing with the kids and just trying to make light of the situation. They were really good.
"And even the captain was out with the flight deck crew helping with the passports and getting the visas organised. So it really was a bit of Dunkirk spirit.
"But yeah, it just took so long and everyone was really tired."
A representative from Qantas was eventually sent to the hotel from Sydney to explain that the delay of the relief plane getting to them was due to permissions for the flight path to Baku, and the delayed departure was due to the curfew cut-off time at Heathrow.
She said: "The reason why the rescue flight took so long to get here and therefore missed its window at Heathrow was because of the machinations of trying to get approvals to fly in a direct route from Sydney to here (Baku)."
Ms Kennett said she had sympathy for people who were due to get connecting flights onward from London, and was grateful she was not too badly affected.
"I've missed out on a few events, Christmas Eve night raffle at the pub - I'll do it next year. I'm just going to head home - my husband's picking me up - home to my dog," she said.
She said passengers had not been told officially whether the warning light indicating a possible fire was simply a faulty indicator, but that she had heard no smoke was detected in the cargo hold.
Qantas was contacted for comment.
This comes as rail and Border Force strikes seem to have had little effect for most Brits travelling this Christmas Eve.
Warnings were heeded about the potential impact of rail strikes, AA said, adding that there was little impact onto the country’s roads.
Meanwhile at the country's airports, some people have even said that things went smoother than normal despite the workers' walkout.
As rail passengers raced to get the last trains with Christmas Eve services halting early due to industrial action, people made sufficient alternative plans to avoid chaos the motoring organisation said.
A spokesperson for the AA said: “I was quite surprised at how freely the motorway traffic was moving.
“Between 10am and 11.30am when I was having a look at the motorways there was literally a handful of incidents on the major roads like the M25 and the M6 and most of those were leading to slow traffic.
“So it wasn’t as bad as it could have been and it certainly wasn’t as bad as it was yesterday.
“I think probably you’ve got a combination of people heeding the advice – I know that yesterday we had a look at some of the car hire availability at some of the major traffic hubs in London and some of them were showing on their websites that they didn’t have any vehicles available.
“It gives you an idea of what travellers were doing in response to the train strikes, obviously a lot of them were going for hire cars.
“Because the strikes and their potential impact were well telegraphed I think people had formulated alternate plans and that would seem to have been borne out today because there seems to have been relatively little disruption.”
Meanwhile Border Force strikes in airports seemed to have caused little issue as well.
Although The Guardian revealed that the soldiers and sailors covering for Border Force staff can’t actually detain people they suspect of criminal behaviour.
There were worries the eight days of strikes would cause chaos over Christmas and into the new years as 1,000 staff members walked out.
