Long diversion/hefty delay for Pegasus Airlines passengers trying to get to Moscow, Russia

On 17 December, passengers of a Pegasus Airlines Airbus A320neo (registered TC-NBD) were forced to have a lot of patience on their flight between Izmir, Turkey and Moscow Domodedovo, Russia. First, the flight-time was already longer than usual, avoiding the Ukrainian airspace. When approaching Moscow, the flight entered into a holding pattern due to adverse weather conditions. Unable to land, the pilots decided to divert to the airport of … Helsinki, Finland.

Looking at data on flightradar24, the aircraft landed at the Finnish capital at around 00:50 (UTC). After a wait of four hours (at 4:50), the decision was made to head back to Turkey.

A little clip that appeared on social media, it is clear that some passengers didn’t agree with the situation.

The next morning at 8:45, flight PC1521 landed in Istanbul.

In the afternoon of 18 December, the flight departed from Istanbul and safely landed at Moscow. Most likely carrying all passengers of the diverted flight.

Another tweet mentions that the passengers were stuck inside the aircraft for about 10 hours without food or water, but that information is unconfirmed.