Bengaluru: British Airways flight BA118, which departed Bengaluru at 7.40 am on Friday, returned after reaching Abu Dhabi due to a technical issue, Bengaluru airport sources said.

The flight later departed for London, its original destination, at 2.30 pm, according to sources.

In response to a PTI email, a British Airways spokesperson said, “The aircraft landed safely back in Bengaluru as a precaution due to a technical issue. The aircraft was checked over and has since departed on its scheduled journey to London Heathrow.” A passenger, Satish Medapati (@Smedapati), posted on ‘X’: “BA118 BLR-LON this morning returned to BLR after a few hours. We are still in the plane, but no valid information other than saying they have no info. Hope to get onto the skies soon (sic).” Satish did not respond to PTI’s queries and has posted no further updates.

Incidentally, London Heathrow Airport—one of the world’s busiest—faced a major disruption on May 21 following a power outage caused by a fire at a nearby electrical substation. It was initially reported that the airport would remain closed through Friday.

British Airways, in a statement posted early Friday on its official ‘X’ handle (@British_Airways), said it had operated around 90 per cent of its Saturday flying schedule.

“…the vast majority of our customers were able to get to where they needed to be despite the very challenging circumstances going into the start of the day,” the airline said.

“As things stand, we’re anticipating being able to run a near-full schedule on Sunday,” the statement added.