Munich: Lufthansa jet from Shanghai has to make emergency landing in Vienna

A Lufthansa plane on its way from Shanghai to Munich has to refuel shortly before arriving in Vienna. There are two reasons for this.

An unusual incident occurred on the night of February 26 at Vienna-Schwechat Airport: A Lufthansa Airbus A350, en route from Shanghai to Munich, had to make an unplanned stopover because it was running low on fuel. As the Austrian newspaper "Kurier" and the portal aerotelegraph.com report, there were two reasons for this.

"A deviation from the planned route to a slightly longer one due to instructions from Chinese air traffic control in combination with unfavorable headwinds on the route made a short refueling stop in Vienna necessary," Lufthansa explained in response to a request from the "Kurier".

Normally, a flight from Shanghai to Munich with an Airbus A350 takes around 12 hours and 45 minutes - partly because the airline has been avoiding the airspace of both countries since the Russian attack on Ukraine. However, the affected flight LH727 initially landed in Vienna after around twelve and a half hours of flight time.

After refueling, the aircraft with the registration D-AIXR continued its journey and reached Munich after a short flight of only 38 minutes with a delay of 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Lufthansa later clarified: "Of course, sufficient fuel is taken into account when planning the flight route. The two unforeseeable changes during the flight described in detail resulted in increased kerosene consumption, so that an alternative landing in Vienna was necessary in order to still have the planned remaining amount of kerosene available when landing in Munich. The calculation was completely correct."