Glasgow-phobia delays nine Cyprus Airways flights

Nine Cyprus Airways (CAIR) flights to and from London were delayed since Sunday because of passenger fears that some other passengers could be terrorists linked to Saturday’s attempted bombing of Glasgow airport.

The Cyprus national carrier apologized for the delays in an announcement issued Tuesday, saying that the grounding of flight CY332 from Larnaca to London’s Heathrow caused a chain of delays, starting with the disembarkation of the suspect passengers and the long time for them to identify their luggage. This caused a further three-hour delay in the flight’s departure.

CAIR said that as a result of the delay, that flight was grounded in London as the authorities at Heathrow decided the departure would be too close to the 11.30pm night flight ban, even though the airline claims it was ready to depart at 11pm.

As a result, the plane only left London’s Heathrow at the first available slot after the airport opened at 6am.

Similar racist-driven delays were caused on several CAIR flights soon after the 7/7 bombings in London in and last August’s apprehension of other potential terrorists of Asian origin, when passengers decided that others on their flights looked suspicious.