British Airways flight cancelled after smell detected while on Calgary tarmac

A tourist from London says he can't believe his brief trip to Calgary had not one, but two flight problems.

Sola Taiwo was on a British Airways flight that was forced to land in Iqaluit last week because of plane trouble, which the pilot later told reporters was a "fume event."

Passengers had to spend the night there before another plane was sent to ferry them the rest of the way to Calgary the next day.

Taiwo says he has no hard feelings about Canada but does about the airline, after once again detecting a strange smell while in a British Airways plane.

"Smell fumes last week, smell fumes again this week, I don't think I want a third one," he said with a laugh.

Taiwo was headed to Calgary to celebrate his sister's 68th birthday when the original flight got diverted.

Then, almost exactly a week later, passengers were sitting on the tarmac Wednesday evening when Taiwo says they were told the air conditioner broke and the flight was cancelled.

"And I said to my wife, 'Oh no, not again,'" he said. "We thought our return would be better but, deja vu."

And unlike the special treatment they received in Iqaluit from the Red Cross, airport staff and flight crew, this time around, Taiwo says there was chaos and little information provided.

Doreen Barrie was also on the plane and ended up missing a connecting flight to Bergen, Norway for a cruise.

Her tour company re-booked her on a KLM flight so she wouldn't miss the departure.

"They just treated everyone as a lumpen mass, undifferentiated mass of people who had the same needs, same concerns, and they had no concerns by the sounds of it," she said.

British Airways says it's been trying to find other flights for passengers and also offered hotel rooms.

"We are very sorry for the delays to customers' travel plans as a result of a technical fault with one of our aircraft," read a statement from the airline.

"As soon as we were able to, we sent spare parts and highly skilled engineers from London to repair the aircraft and we are looking after the affected customers.

"The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority and we would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so."