On Monday, June 2 2025, American Airlines flight 780 took off from Philadelphia for Naples, Italy. They sent the wrong plane – and passengers wound up having to land 124 miles away in Rome.
Normally this flight is operated by a Boeing 787-8 aircraft. However, on Monday American used a larger Boeing 787-9 – which isn’t permitted at the Naples airport.
So while the flight took off at 7:42 p.m. with a full load of summer travelers headed to this leisure destination, crew were told on descent that they weren’t cleared to land and would be touching down in Rome instead.
American Airlines Boeing 787-9
The Naples airport has a single 8,622-foot runway. That’s not short – but it’s not as long as most airports handling long haul traffic. Aviation watchdog JonNYC, who first reported on the incident:
ACFT 789 NOT AUTHORIZED AS PER AIRPORT AUTHORITY
— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 5, 2025
Update: more from Jon:
I -sense- that AA had NAP was listed as authorized to fly the 789 on their end. No idea if someone just missed something to show it approved or if something changed.
Someone adds:
"NAP is listed as ICAO category 8 for ARFF which restricts any aircraft longer than 200 feet. The…— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) June 6, 2025
On the ground in Rome, American swapped out the Boeing 787-8 that was scheduled to fly to Rome and sent this Boeing 787-9 to Chicago instead. Then the next morning the 787-8 that had been intended to go to Chicago was ferried to Naples to operate Naples – Philadelphia.
American Airlines Boeing 787-8
Normally the American Airlines Boeing 787-8 and 787-9 are going to be pretty interchangeable. It isn’t for the Naples flight. And they clearly didn’t flag that restriction or program in logic to prevent this. That’s a big operational failure, reminiscent of when American sent the wrong Airbus A320 – a legacy US Airways plane not certified for extended overwater operations – to Hawaii.
I appreciate that Jon and Gary take the time to report on stuff like this. I look forward to my next flight diversion, so that I can dish-out the ‘deets’ at VFTW. Keep spreadin’ that ‘hot goss’ fellas!
There’s absolutely no excuse for this. Every airline should know what airports are equipment limited.
This is what happens when you cheap out and don’t have business analyst look for failure modes. Typical large Corp behavior.
See also: we’ll fix it in post.
Oops!
I’d be curious why a system isn’t in place to prevent this. Hopefully, they’ll fix the problem, which fortunately seems to have come at a relatively low cost (diverting to Rome over returning home, with little/no effect on the pax flying out of Naples).
AA just keeps knocking it out of the park, don’t they? Their competitors thank them.
Reminds me of my first flight to Milan in the 90s. (Counsel to first Chrysler-Fiat joint venture distributing Alfa Romeo in the US.) Routing was on LH – DTW-FRA-LIN on a 757. Milan was fogged in. After 2 hours of circling (not unusual in Milan in January) the pilot opted to land at Bergamo – about 100 km from Milan. One very overworked border policeman processed 180 pax, and we were taken by buses to Linate. Such is life.
Dylan,
DL and UA fly 767-300ERs (the model AA retired) from their NYC hubs to Naples; it apparently is well-suited for these operationally challenging airports.
DL also uses the A330-200 (which AA also retired) for its ATL-NAP flight.
in other AA fleet news, AvHerald reports that the fire on an AA 738 that made an emergency landing at DEN several months ago was caused by faulty installation of engine parts:
The airplane was powered by two CFM56-7B turbofan engines. The right engine was examined and all the engine fan blades were present, but one fan blade platform was fractured. In addition, the lockwire of a fuel fitting on the variable stator vane (VSV) was loose and installed in the incorrect direction. The VSV actuator rod end was incorrectly fastened and secured to the VSV actuator allowing fuel to leak from the fitting. The VSV rod end muscle line was fractured in the weld, and the 6 o’clock seal drain line of the inboard thrust reverser half was blocked with sealant above the lower bifurcation fire seal and in the exit tube.
DEI will do that to you, AA….
You would dispatch would have software that would be loaded with airport restrictions and throw an error if a flight scheduled would trigger a restriction. For example beyond aircraft/weight restrictions, arrival time cut off.
@ Zaidy G.
What a disgusting post. SAD!
@Zaidy G
Look at you, with your uninformed opinion, just putting your ignorance out there for the world to see.
So proud of you.
AA Dispatch and the flight crew are at fault here. Knowing things like that are part and parcel of flight planning.
Gary, other than “official certification” what prevents this aircraft from landing safely compared to the other model of same aircraft?
Is it a weight issue?
Doug, most likely it can land safely but there either isn’t ramp space for it or possibly the taxiways aren’t certified.
For a proper landing experience in Naples, please consider Delta.
(I tried. Where is @Matt? cc @1990)
There appears to be an error in the text: “On the ground in Rome, American swapped out the Boeing 787-8 that was scheduled to fly to Rome ….”
I’m not sure from that where the swap was made or where the 787-8 was actually scheduled to fly to.
I am scheduled to fly PHL-NCE next week, and the seat map is showing a 787-9. We booked months ago and secured the great exit row seats in row 24. I guess we’re stuck in regular economy seats once they downgauge us? I imagine quite a few people will get bumped as well. This sucks!
Hey, it’s Italy! Rent a blue Vespa and ask AA for reimbursement when you get to Rome. Turn it into a Netflix movie
I have such a low option of AA that I would. It be surprised if they knew this before departure and decided to take a chance and see if they could get away with it. If not, divert and let the station managers and contracted ground crews clean up the mess.
You have to admit, it would be on-brand for AA.
Why blame DEI for this?
This is the sort of thing that should be addressed in the scheduling software. It should not be possible to assign an aircraft to an airport not rated for it. Given how ancient many of the systems appear to be I suspect the software did not enforce this and it relied on the operators–a formula that ensures mistakes will be made.
So how did pax get from Rome to Naples ?
I agree with greggb57
How come AA Dispatch (on average their senior dispatchers are paid around 150,000.00 USD a year) nor the flight crew(making more than the dispatcher presumably) did not knew this? After all, both have operational control of the aircraft and as gregggb57 points out, and are supposed to be alert over these things because it is the bread and butter flight planning. This is even BASIC stuff either of them should’ve known!
But of course, this is America West management, and the same mentality, playing big air carrier games.
@ J F Smith – IIRC, they were bussed overnight. And to add insult to injury the swapped 787-8 ferried FCO-NAP & arrived 1:31 EARLIER than the bus(es) !
Looks like it’s time for a safety audit of AA, given a repeat of this dispatch/crew error plus the blatant maintenance negligence re: the AA 737-800 incident/diversion /FIRE/evac to DEN.
@JFSmith,
There are many high speed trains every day from Rome to Naples. Leonardo express from FCO – Rome then train to Naples. Easy.
I wonder how many of the pax were headed to Rome in the first place and booked a cheaper Naples flight.
@retiredlawyer
How is that remotely similar? You diverted for weather. They diverted for a major screw up.
@Pilot93434 probably none. Fares to NAP on average are higher than FCO.