Qantas passengers stranded after an emergency landing are expected to make it to the United Kingdom by Christmas morning after a recovery flight arrived.
Travellers were stuck in the eastern European nation of Azerbaijan the day before Christmas Eve after their Sydney to London flight was forced to land when pilots were alerted to a fault warning.
The recovery flight - an Airbus A-380 - left Sydney on Saturday morning and landed in the nation's capital Baku early on Sunday to collect the stranded flyers.
Engineers also travelled to Azerbaijan to assess the grounded plane.
The new flight is expected to land at London's Heathrow Airport early on Christmas Day local time.
Pilots made the emergency landing at Baku International Airport after sensors warned of smoke in the plane's cargo hold.
However, the warning was later found to have likely been caused by a faulty sensor as no evidence of smoke was found in the plane's hold.
