American Airlines 787-9 Detours After Sending Wrong Plane To Naples | Details

An American Airlines flight bound for Naples, Italy, was forced to divert to Rome on June 3 after the airline deployed a larger aircraft than Naples International Airport could accommodate. Flight 780, which departed Philadelphia at 7:42 PM on June 2, was scheduled to land in Naples at 10 AM local time.

However, roughly 70 miles from its destination, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner made a sharp turn over the Tyrrhenian Sea and rerouted to Rome Fiumicino Airport, where it landed around 9:45 AM.

American Airlines attributed the change to unspecified “operational limitations.” However, aviation experts attribute the issue to the aircraft type. The airline typically uses the smaller Boeing 787-8 for its Naples route, while this flight used a 787-9, which is 20 feet longer and requires a higher-category rescue and firefighting service (RFFS) at the destination airport.

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According to data from Boeing and the International Civil Aviation Organization, the 787-8 requires a Category 8 RFFS airport, while the 787-9 needs Category 9, a threshold Naples International Airport does not meet. This detail was first flagged by aviation tracker @xJonNYC on X (formerly Twitter), citing comments from local airport officials.

Passengers were bused from Rome to Naples, a journey of over two hours covering approximately 145 miles. American Airlines apologized to passengers for the disruption. Following the diversion, the same aircraft later departed Rome for Chicago as Flight 111 about two-and-a-half hours later. As of now, neither the Naples nor the Rome airport authorities have publicly commented on the incident.