Summary
- T’way Air flight TW172 encountered safety issues, resulting in a one-hour return flight to Singapore and a 21-hour delay for passengers.
- T’way Air has previously experienced delays and safety concerns, leading to special inspections and the imposition of safety measures.
- The incident involving flight TW172 is part of a recent history of technical problems at T’way Air and has attracted the attention of aviation safety authorities.
This story is a first for me as it was originally intended as a celebration of T’way Air’s first flight from South Korea to Rome, but while I was researching this topic, a more pressing story about T’way Air surfaced. Today, a T’way Air flight from Singapore to Seoul departed from Singapore, but within an hour it was back where it had departed, leaving passengers facing a long delay while they waited for a replacement aircraft.
What happened to flight TW172?
According to tracking data from Flightradar24, T’way Air (T’way) flight TW172 departed Singapore Changi Airport at 02:36 on August 11, 2024, heading for Seoul Incheon International Airport (ICN), where it was scheduled to land at 09:55. The aircraft was an Airbus A330-300 built in 2009 with registration HL8502 and MSN 1065, which was last operating on routes to Sydney (SYD), Zagreb (ZAG), Sapporo (CTS), Ulaanbaatar (UBN) and Bishkek (FRU).
As the map shows, the plane never really got underway towards Seoul Incheon, but flew a kind of holding pattern over Indonesia and Malaysia before returning to Singapore Changi just over an hour after takeoff. The South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that T’way officials said the A330-300 had 285 passengers on board and returned to Changi Airport “for safety reasons”.
Photo: T’way Air
After an uneventful landing in Singapore, the A330-300 was inspected and declared “not immediately airworthy”. A replacement aircraft had to be sent from Seoul to Changi this afternoon. The replacement flight is expected to depart Singapore at around 11pm this evening. For passengers now waiting at Changi Airport, this means a delay of almost 21 hours.
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T’way said it has offered passengers an overnight stay at a hotel near Changi and will provide them with other compensation for the inconvenience. As this event is still in its early stages, no news has emerged yet about the “safety review” or the reason for the A330 replacement, but hopefully those details will be announced by T’way soon.
Further questions to T’way
This event follows an 11-hour delay in June for passengers travelling from Seoul Incheon to Osaka Kansai International Airport due to technical problems. Korea Times reported that the flight was scheduled to depart at 12:05 p.m. with 310 passengers on board, but passengers were later informed that there would be a delay in departure, meaning the flight would ultimately depart at 11:04 p.m.
Photo: T’way Air
Just one week later, on June 14, Korea Times reported that South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted a “special inspection of T’way Air and ordered the airline to implement safety measures by next month.” Last week, T’way experienced four flight delays, affecting hundreds of international passengers on flights between South Korea, Japan and Thailand due to maintenance issues.
Last week, T’way launched its first flight between Seoul and Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport, this time with an Airbus A330-200. The service will operate three times a week and follows the launch of flights from Incheon to Zagreb in Croatia in May. Flights between South Korea and Paris will open on August 28, with flights to Barcelona and Frankfurt starting in the second half of 2024.
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When Korean Air’s proposed takeover of Asiana Airlines was approved by European regulators, it was on the condition that another Korean operator be allowed to serve those routes. T’way now flies to Zagreb and Rome and is firmly on the radar of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Korean authorities, so today’s incident is likely to raise further questions for the budget carrier.
