• Warning: spoilers for "House of the Dragon" season two, episode three.
• The series officially confirms that King Viserys did not want Aegon II to be his successor.
• Fans are now mocking Alicent Targaryen for starting a civil war over a simple name mistake.

The latest episode of "House of the Dragon" confirms that Westeros' civil war started because two Targaryens have the same name and fans can't stop laughing at this plot point.

The brewing civil war started officially in season one, episode eight, after King Viserys Targaryen (Paddy Considine) accidentally caused confusion over who should succeed him in episode seven.

At the beginning of the episode, Viserys reiterates that his first daughter, Rhaenyra (Emma D'Arcy), is his heir. But just before the king dies at the end of the episode, he hallucinates and talks about an Aegon being "the prince that was promised" to unite the realm.

It is clear to the audience Viserys is talking about "The Song of Ice and Fire" prophecy, but Alicent Targaryen (Olivia Cooke), who is in the room at the time, believes her husband is talking about their son Aegon II (Tom Glynn-Carney), so she puts him on the throne in the next episode.

In season two, episode three finally confirmed that Viserys was talking about Aegon the Conqueror, Viserys' grandfather.

In the latest episode, Rhaenyra sneaks into King's Landing to talk to her stepmother, Alicent Targaryen, about how they can stop the impending civil war over who should rule Westeros.

While explaining her decision to support Aegon as king to Rhaenyra, Alicent claims Viserys called Aegon "the prince that was promised to unite the realm."

Rhaenyra is shocked when Alicent mentions these words, revealing to Alicent that Viserys was actually talking about the prophecy of "The Song of Ice and Fire," conceived by Aegon the Conqueror.

Yes, The Dance of the Dragons war began because Alicent got confused about two Targaryens named Aegon.

"The Song of Ice and Fire" prophecy is meant to be kept between the Targaryen kings and queens, meaning Viserys likely thought he was talking to Rhaenyra on his deathbed in season one, episode seven.

Alicent seems to realize her mistake but knows it is no longer possible to rectify the error and stop the war.

This new development was not adapted from George R. R. Martin's "Fire and Blood" novel, the series' source material. Still, fans seem to have welcomed the change, making multiple memes about Alicent's realization of her mistake.

While "House of the Dragon" is already a global hit series, its weekly release format allows fans to talk and joke about each episode individually, creating bigger hype for the show.

If the Targaryens learn one thing from this entire mess, they should start giving their children different names.

• Airbus has agreed to acquire assets of Spirit AeroSystems for $1.
• It will also be compensated with $559 million from the aviation manufacturer. 
• The bulk of Spirit is being bought by Boeing in the wake of the Alaska Airlines blowout.

Airbus has agreed to buy assets from a major aviation supplier for a symbolic $1 price tag, the planemaker announced Monday.

Spirit AeroSystems, which was part of Boeing before being spun off in 2005, is being carved up following January's Alaska Airlines blowout.

Boeing is paying $4.7 billion to buy back Spirit AeroSystems, the companies announced Monday.

However, the deal also requires Airbus' involvement because Spirit supplied the European planemaker with several key parts.

Airbus said it has entered a binding term sheet agreement which will see it acquire the production of "major activities related to Airbus." That includes building A350 fuselage sections, as well as the pylons, wings, and mid-fuselage for A220 jets.

Plus, Airbus would be compensated with $559 million from Spirit AeroSystems.

This isn't the first time that Airbus has picked up assets on the cheap. The A220 began life as the Bombardier CSeries, but financial issues saw Airbus buy a 50% stake for one Canadian dollar in 2018. That was later raised to 75% in a $591 million deal.

Spirit built the fuselage of the Alaska 737 Max that lost its door plug in midair and sparked a crisis at Boeing. Weeks after the incident, Boeing began negotiations to buy back the firm in an attempt to improve its quality-control processes.

In a preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board said Spirit sent the plane to Boeing's factory with damaged rivets. The door plug was then opened to solve this, but it wasn't bolted back into place before being delivered to Alaska Airlines, per the report.

The fallout has seen Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun announce his resignation, and the Justice Department consider criminal charges against Boeing, which could be announced this week.

• In an increasingly online world, young people are feeling lonelier than ever.
• Business Insider spoke to Millennials and Gen Zers who have found mates and dates at run clubs.
• They said run clubs offer regular, real-life interactions with people with shared interests.

When Justin Shields started the Venice Run Club in August 2020, he wasn't looking for love.

Shortly before, he had deleted all the dating apps on his phone because he felt they were a "waste of time," he told Business Insider.

And besides, Shields, now 34, who works in tech sales in Los Angeles, was focused on his new endeavor: a nonprofit that the run club was meant to drum up support for.

A month after Shields started VRC, an enthusiastic runner who worked in advertising named Erin offered to revamp the club's socials for free. After a flirty DM slide on Instagram, their conversations quickly transitioned from business to pleasure, and Shields invited her on a run outside the club, just the two of them.

He had never found anyone he could see himself raising a family with until he met Erin, now 29. They married within the year.

Shield's experience is emblematic of a wider trend of younger people losing faith in dating apps (the number of monthly active users on Tinder dropped in the first three months of this year, according to MatchGroup) and seeking real-world connections, whether romantic or platonic.

According to Eventbrite, the number of people attending in-person dating events advertised on the platform spiked by 49% since last year, while there was an 82% increase in people going to events dedicated to making new friends. This chimes with the increase in startups trying to facilitate IRL social connections that BI has previously reported on.

For the seven people who spoke to BI, run clubs — which have exploded in popularity among urban young professionals recently — were the perfect arena for all this to play out.

"Every time I would get on the apps, I'd be like, 'What the heck am I doing? I don't need somebody right now to fill a void.' And I feel like I shine better in person — it's cutthroat online," Shields said.

"When you're running with people, you just forget about everything around you. You feel like you're part of a bigger mission, you lose yourself and you forget the activity that you're doing," he added.

In an increasingly online world where young people are feeling lonelier than ever, running clubs offer regular, real-life interactions with people with shared interests.

Meet-cutes at the run club

Since the hobby requires a degree of physical fitness, it's not surprising that connections made at run clubs easily transition from the pavement to the bedroom — and sometimes even to the altar.

In October 2023, Hayden Boles, an investment banker, had been casually dating without much success, and Aniko Zabo, a speech-language pathologist, was just out of a serious relationship.

But when they met at a Halloween run in Denver organized by Cooldown Run Club, a self-described "social club disguised as a run club" operating in 11 US cities, they kept being drawn back to each other. Seven months later, the pair got engaged and said they have a "needle in a haystack" kind of connection.

Boles, 31, and Zabo, 27, said there aren't many places to connect with similar-aged people post-college, so the run club provided them with a new way to meet people who were healthy, active, and had similar interests who they wouldn't otherwise have met.

Emma Atwell, 26, and Justin Wagers, 29, from Colorado, also met at a Cooldown run. They've been together for a year and a half and are moving in together. For them, Atwell said, the run club was "way better than dating apps" because of the in-person contact and the promise of a shared hobby.

"Cooldown was a super low-pressure but effective way to get to know each other. There were no expectations, we were just going to runs and enjoying a beer together afterwards," Atwell said.

Ready-made friend groups

Atwell and Wagers also frequently hang out with a group of friends they made from Cooldown runs, something which Daniel Belk, one of its co-founders, told BI is common among members.

He said many young people who move for work to the cities where Cooldown operates go from not knowing a single person to having a friendship group.

"It's not as intimidating as walking up to someone at a bar or sliding into their DMs," he said, which can often be embarrassingly interpreted as flirtatious.

Plus, running is a unique group exercise where you can sustain conversations, unlike yoga or soccer, Coodown co-founder Bailey Ness told BI. No matter your pace, you can run or walk with a variety of people with different abilities.

It's the same in Venice Beach, Shields said: "We have so many people who have formed fantastic friendships that are now living together, that have taken trips together, done vacations, Thanksgivings together.

"I would say we probably have just as many as those as we have romantic relationships."

He thinks this is because VRC unites people with similar interests in a confined context, just like a chess club or a beach tennis club.

"If you see the same people all the time, you start talking. Running is just the new popular thing," he said. "But I feel like if you go to any club, if you have a hobby, if you are around the same people often you'll most likely meet people."

When asked whether starting the run club was a good thing for his life, Shields replied, "hell yes."

• Apple's iPhone shipments in China surged 40% in May, according to Bloomberg calculations.
• Shipments soared more than 50% in April, suggesting Apple is regaining ground in the key market.
• It had to slash prices and run big promotions to boost demand, putting profit margins at risk.

Apple appears to be reigniting iPhone demand in China, but its profit margins could pay the price.

iPhone shipments in China soared about 40% in May, dwarfing a 13% rise in overall smartphone shipments. That's according to Bloomberg calculations based on new figures from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, a research group with ties to the Chinese government.

The jump follows a 50% surge in shipments of Apple's smartphones in April, signaling a significant comeback in its biggest market outside the US.

Yet it's worth underscoring that Apple aggressively cut iPhone prices and unleashed a raft of new promotions in the months leading up to China's June 18 shopping festival in a move that could weigh on its margins.

iPhone shipments fell 10% globally in the first quarter as sales in China seemingly softened and local rivals such as Huawei took market share.

The improved the China outlook, and the recent news of Apple's partnership with artificial-intelligence powerhouse OpenAI, have helped lift the company's stock 13% this year after declines in March and April.

However, Apple Intelligence features that use ChatGPT may not be available in China when they are rolled out on the next iPhone because Beijing has not yet approved the OpenAI bot for use.

Apple's latest earnings show it generated $16.4 billion or 18% of its roughly $91 billion of revenue last quarter in Greater China — a region that includes China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. That was an 8% decline from the same period last year, compared to a 4% top-line decline overall.

• The UK army is unprepared for any type of war, a former defense official told the Financial Times.
• It would also run out of ammunition quickly in any large-scale operation, Robert Johnson said.
• Former and current defense officials have raised concerns about the UK's war readiness.

The UK's armed forces are not prepared for any type of war and would quickly struggle with supplies, a former defense official said.

"In any larger-scale operation, we would run out of ammunition rapidly," Robert Johnson told the Financial Times.

In his previous role as director of the Secretary of State's Office for Net Assessment and Challenge, Johnson led a 25-person team charged with wargaming and using research, analysis, and external think tanks to ensure the UK's defensive capabilities were at "peak" performance.

After leaving the role in May, Johnson assessed that the UK military cannot defend the British homelands "properly" and would be underequipped for overseas operations of the scale of the Falklands and Iraq wars.

"Our defenses are too thin, and we are not prepared to fight and win an armed conflict of any scale," he told the FT.

The UK is a member of NATO and one of Ukraine's closest allies.

But Johnson cited the UK's "insufficient" air defenses to intercept long-range missile strikes, its navy's lack of ships to patrol the North Atlantic to monitor and deter Russian submarine activity, and its air force's need for almost twice as many fighter jets as it has.

The UK has also failed to play a global role and deter adversaries, Johnson told the FT.

"The government is not taking the public into its confidence about the scale of the threat because it knows it's not ready," he said, adding that being honest did not pose any security risks because "the Russians already know this anyway."

Johnson, who heads Oxford University's Changing Character of War Centre, is the latest defense official to have raised concerns about the UK's war readiness.

In a February report titled "Ready for War?", the UK's defense committee found British forces are not prepared to fight a "sustained, high-intensity" war.

Meanwhile, in an April comment piece for The Telegraph, outgoing armed forces minister James Heappey said the UK is a "very long way behind" its allies in preparing for war.

Johnson's assessment comes days before the UK general elections, which, according to polls, show the Conservative Party losing to the Labour Party after 14 years in power.

According to Johnson, the next government should hike defense spending to at least 3% of GDP.

"We have to cut our coat to fit our cloth," he told the FT.

• Taco Bell is the latest chain to offer a new lower-price combo deal.
• Other fast-food chains like Burger King and McDonald's are also involved in the value wars.
• Chains are trying to lure diners back in after high fast-food prices have turned many away.

The fast food wars are heating up.

Last week, Taco Bell became the latest chain to announce that it's launching a new $7 value meal deal.

It joins chains like McDonald's and Burger King in offering new lower-priced deals as customers seek more value in the face of rising fast-food prices.

Prices have remained high since the pandemic when chains raised their menu prices in response to soaring food and labor costs. It's led some customers to order smaller portions or to start cooking more at home.

In a bid to get diners back, fast-food and restaurant chains are launching more value deals. So, how do the other offers stack up?

Taco Bell

Taco Bell's new $7 Luxe Craving Box includes a Chalupa Supreme, Beefy 5-Layer Burrito, Double Stacked Taco, alongside chips and nacho cheese sauce, and a medium drink.

The limited-time deal gives customers a 55% discount off typical menu prices, the company said.

Earlier this year, Taco Bell overhauled its Cravings Value Menu by adding six new "meal-sized" items to the menu, which features items under $3.

Burger King

Burger King also announced a limited-time value offer, the "$5 Your Way Meal." It includes a choice between a Whopper Jr., Bacon Cheeseburger, and Chicken Jr., alongside fries, four-piece chicken nuggets, and a soft drink, all for $5.

This deal is set to run for several months, unlike a similar deal offered by McDonald's, Bloomberg reported.

McDonald's

McDonald's launched its $5 offering at the end of June. It includes a choice between two of the chain's signature burgers — a McChicken or a McDouble — and a four-piece McNuggets, fries, and a drink.

Wendy's

Other chains are expanding their existing meal deals. Wendy's has announced that it's adding to its $3 breakfast deal for a limited time. Customers can pair a small portion of seasoned potatoes with a choice between two breakfast muffins — a bacon, egg, and cheese English muffin or a sausage, egg, and cheese English muffin, the company said.

Starbucks

The coffee chain has launched new $5 and $6 breakfast combos in June.

As part of this new "pairings menu," customers can get a 12-ounce iced or hot coffee or tea paired with a butter croissant from $5, or with a breakfast sandwich from $6.

Chili's

Restaurant chains like Chili's are also rolling out more deals and portion sizes to capture some of fast-food's lost diners.

Chili's launched its new Big Smasher burger earlier this year — the burger costs $12.99 but comes down to $10.99 when part of the chain's "3 For Me" meal combo. The cheaper deals hope to capture those diners looking for value as fast-food prices creep up toward restaurant chain prices.

• Elon Musk posted a list of his favorite audiobooks on X. 
• The self-professed history buff recommends several lengthy works including "The Story of Civilization."
• "Admittedly, this is a list that appeals to those who think about Rome every day," Musk wrote on X. 

Elon Musk has come up with a list of recommended audiobooks — but they may not make terribly relaxing listening by the pool or beach this summer.

The Tesla CEO's first pick is "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant, an 11-volume collection covering the history of European and some Eastern civilizations that was published between 1935 and 1975.

The 10th volume, "Rousseau and Revolution," won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1968. It was described by one Amazon reviewer as "extremely heavy."

"The first one on the list will take a while to get through, but is very much worthwhile," Musk wrote of the Durants' history on X.

That could be something of an understatement: Audible lists the duration of the 11 volumes at about 400 hours in total — or more than 16 days without sleep.

Next up is the ancient Greek epic poem, "The Iliad" (Penguin edition), which would take a mere 17 hours and 49 minutes to listen to, according to Audible.

Musk also suggests "The Road to Serfdom" by economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek, which was first published in 1944 and argues in favor of individualism and liberal economics.

Also featured on the list of 11 audiobooks is a biography of General Douglas MacArthur, "American Caesar," and the story behind the creation of video game company id Software.

"Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture," by David Kushner was first published in 2003 and focuses on cofounders John Carmack and John Romero.

"Admittedly, this is a list that appeals to those who think about Rome every day," Musk wrote on X, referring to the viral internet craze questioning how often men dwell on the Roman Empire.

Indeed, one of his recommendations was written by Caesar himself. "The Gallic Wars" covers the Roman Emperor's campaign against the Gauls from 58 to 50 BC.

Musk is known to be fascinated by history, particularly the study of warfare and civilization.

The SpaceX and Tesla chief has been outspoken about the need to fight population decline and has said the issue poses a major risk to the future of civilization.

"For me, it is just fascinating to read about history. I mean, learn the lessons of history, such that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past," Musk said in a 2022 interview with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer.

The list also includes "Twelve Against the Gods" by William Bolitho, a 1929 title that examines the lives of 12 adventurers including Alexander the Great and Christopher Columbus, and "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford from 2004.

Musk concludes his X post with an appeal for audio versions of the 1986 title "The Encyclopedia of Military History from 3500 BC to the Present" by Richard Ernest Dupuy and Trevor Dupuy, and "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World" by Edward Shepherd Creasy from 1851.

What do you think about Musk's list? Get in touch: pthompson@businessinsider.com

Lucy Lawless is well aware of the "long shadow" her iconic role in "Xena: Warrior Princess" has cast over her career.

The series, which aired 134 episodes across six seasons, is what introduced her to the masses. And while Lawless wasn't particularly fond of performing the show's grueling action scenes at the time, she carried that fighting spirit along with her well after "Xena" wrapped in 2001 — particularly in her drive to create stories she believes in.

Her latest, the Acorn TV series "My Life is Murder," is one example of a project Lawless fought to bring to life. In it, the actor plays private detective Alexa Crowe, who has a talent for solving bizarre murders that unfold in Australia and New Zealand.

While Lawless, 56, was immediately drawn to the charming, bread-baking PI, not everyone felt as strongly about bringing the character's story to the screen. But Lawless was determined to make it happen and opted to sign on as an executive producer.

"When you have the idea, but no money, you have to go fight for it," she says.

For the latest interview in BI's Role Play series, Lawless talks about hating her stuntwork on "Xena," why a reboot wouldn't be all that groundbreaking now, and what it was like grappling with the "culture of anxiety" when she joined the "Battlestar Galactica" cast.

On why getting cast as Xena was 'a great big cosmic joke'

It's been over 20 years since "Xena: Warrior Princess" ended. If you had the chance to do it all again, what would you do differently about the series?

Well, there's some things I probably would've left to early CGI, like fire-breathing… I just blew my eyebrows off! Crazy stuff like that. I wouldn't have done all the things where I got injured — I broke my pelvis on the Jay Leno show doing a "Xena" skit that I could have lived without. But not much else. It was great fun.

Is there anything about the show that you originally weren't keen on, but over time you've kind of come around on?

Yes, the action! I hated it every day of my life, and now I will say I don't want to do it ever again either, but it did me the power of good because I was forced to learn things that I'd been so hopeless at school.

My nickname at school was "Unco," for uncoordinated. Then suddenly to find myself cast as "Xena: Warrior Princess" was a great big cosmic joke.

Xena has become a queer icon because of her unofficial relationship with Gabrielle. If they ever managed to get a reboot off the ground again, would you prefer to see an outright gay Xena?

I don't think that would even be particularly mark-worthy these days, would it? The kids seem to be so down with all that stuff. It would be completely fine. Would I prefer it? Yeah, well I think the case was settled on that by the end of the series. We were like, "No, she's totally gay."

But they didn't say it because in those days, people for whom that would've been against their beliefs, or whatever the hell, and who didn't want to see it, they didn't have to. People who did want to see it could. So it was sort of working on all levels in those days. But I think she definitely was gay, and that was part of the master plan.

Now I look back, and the writers all knew what they were doing and the fans picked up on it immediately. Renee [O'Connor] and I were the last to know. We saw it coming over the wire from the Village Voice that our characters were being held as a couple of gay icons. We were like, "What? Isn't that hilarious?" Well, we thought it was cool, and interesting, and edgy. But we had no idea that that was always the plan.

It seems like you get asked about the possibility of a "Xena" revival in every interview. I've just done it too. But do you feel like audiences now know you more for your other work?

It is interesting. I would say predominantly that "Xena" is the thing that's cast the longest shadow. But "Parks and Rec" has people who don't know what "Xena" is, but they do know "Parks and Rec" or "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or something. So that's lovely. I've covered a lot of different bases of related, but not necessarily overlapping, pools of audiences.

On the spoiler culture on 'Battlestar Galactica' and where Ron Swanson and Diane would be now

You also joined "Battlestar Galactica" in season two to play D'anna Biers. How did you handle establishing yourself in that kind of environment when the cast and crew have already figured out their working relationships?

That was a weird one. Because in my opinion, the actors were kept in a state of insecurity, which I don't agree with as an executive producer. I don't agree with that at all. Because they didn't want any spoilers getting out there at the time — people didn't know if they were going to be killed off, and they were extremely nervous.

So there was a culture of anxiety on that show.

Plus you're filming all day in the dark. You get to work in the dark, you are in space all day, and then you come out, and it's dark again. That isn't conducive to a very joyful, lighthearted environment, because human beings need the green of trees and the blue of the sky and all that stuff to be truly mentally happy and nourished on some level.

It was difficult coming in, because they felt if I was coming in, then one of them was on the way out. They were really nice people so I could tell it wasn't because they were awful, but there was a little bit of a culture of fear. And that was a shame.

Ten years ago you also played Diane, Ron Swanson's third wife in "Parks and Recreation." What do you think those two are doing in 2024?

I don't know, getting out the vote, I guess! That would be interesting because Ron would be on this crazy libertarian attack and I wonder if he would be… That might break them up actually, this election in America.

On 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' and wearing prosthetic entrails to lunch on set

In terms of your characters, Ruby in "Ash vs. Evil Dead" is a personal favorite.

Really?!

Yeah. The wild, campy horror is great. What are the biggest challenges when working with gory prosthetics? I'm just thinking of season three when a demon baby eats its way out of Ruby…

It's just another day at the office. We didn't think twice about it. It was quite fun. I've got a lot of photos of me sitting about with four kilos of guts hanging out at the front of that dress.

Having to sit around in that all day and people having to eat with you, with your guts hanging out… it was kind of amusing. Bruce Campbell would think nothing of it.

The show wrapped up after three seasons, but Sam Raimi is still producing "Evil Dead" movies. What would you do with Ruby if you got the chance to revisit her?

I think we'd have the Ron Swanson relationship, where she could be Bruce's hideous wife. They'd have such a terrible relationship. It would be hilarious. They'd be incredibly unsupportive of one another and yet it'd be inescapable.

On thinking directing was a 'crap job' before she tried it herself

You've got nearly a hundred credits to your name. What's the one project you wish got more attention?

"My Life is Murder" and my new film, "Never Look Away," which is my directorial debut.

How did you come onto that project? Because a documentary about a war journalist is not something fans would typically associate you with.

I've been offered many times to direct, and it always looked like such a crap job. But I got an email from a guy called Joe Duran, who was the subject's best friend, and he said, "Do you want to make a film about Margaret Moth? I'm the heir to her estate and I've got all her photographs."

My mind flew back to 1992 when all of New Zealand was glued to CNN because one of our own, a CNN camera person, had her face shot off in Sarajevo and wasn't expected to survive. Well, Margaret did survive.

I wrote back and said, "Yes, I will find the money, and I will find the producers, and we will make this." A month later, we were saying, "Who do we get to direct this?" And somebody said, "Well, why don't you do it?"

And I was like, "No, come on. I don't direct." And then it became, "Well, yes, why don't I? Because nobody cares about this in the way that I do and nobody believes in it in the way that I do."

I was there before the money on that one, just like I was with "My Life is Murder." When you have the idea, but no money, you have to go fight for it. That's real producing.

Shooting "My Life is Murder" is like a ray of sunshine because I'm working with three of my best friends, and we laugh like idiots all day long. But then working on a film is incredible torture. It's terrifying, exciting, stressful, and I crave it.

So yeah, it's the best of both worlds.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

"My Life is Murder" season four is now streaming on Acorn TV.

• Three people were left on the tarmac as their plane took off without them, the Washington Post reported.
• Liz Weir, an author who uses a wheelchair, said the plane left with her luggage on board.
• She couldn't get another flight until nearly eight hours later, and missed a speaking event.

Two people in wheelchairs were left on the airport tarmac as their flight took off without them, The Washington Post reported.

Liz Weir, an author from Northern Ireland, was due to fly from Belfast to Edinburgh with easyJet last month. She told the Post she arrived several hours early for the 30-minute flight — anxious not to miss an event she was due to speak at.

Weir, who uses a wheelchair due to a heart condition, was wheeled from the gate to the tarmac by airport staff, the Post reported. There was also another passenger in a wheelchair who was with their husband.

As they reached the tarmac, the jet stairs were taken away. The passengers and staff tried to wave to get the pilots' attention, but the plane taxied away and took off.

"You always say, 'Oh, they won't go without us,' but they actually did. They went without us and took my luggage as well," Weir told the BBC.

"I would obviously like some sort of compensation; I lost earnings last night, there's appointments there, the damage to my reputation is there," she added.

"But it's more an important point that needs to be stressed that they need to be taking better care of people with mobility issues."

Having missed her flight, the next available tickets were for a flight eight hours later, the BBC reported. Weir told the outlet she didn't arrive in Edinburgh until 11 p.m.

Once there, she was able to retrieve her suitcase that had taken off on the earlier flight.

A spokesperson for Belfast International Airport said it was a situation for the airline to comment on.

easyJet did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

In a statement shared with the Post, the airline said there was a "misunderstanding by our ground handling team and crew on board."

It added that "we are sorry for the impact this disruption will have had" and said it will provide compensation.

• El Al said a plane en route from Warsaw to Tel Aviv made an emergency landing in Turkey.
• The Israeli airline said local staff at Antalya airport refused to refuel the plane.
• Tensions between the two countries have escalated since Israel's invasion of Gaza.

Israeli flag carrier El Al says local airport workers refused to refuel one of its planes after it made an emergency landing in Turkey on Sunday.

Flight LY5102 from Warsaw to Tel Aviv landed in Antalya almost three hours into its journey, data from flight-tracking website FlightAware shows.

FlightAware data shows that the plane then flew to Rhodes International Airport, stopping for about an hour, before proceeding to its final destination.

In a statement to The Times of Israel, El Al said that local workers in Turkey "refused to refuel the company's plane, even though it was a medical case."

El Al did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

The newspaper said a passenger requiring medical treatment was evacuated. The airline confirmed to The Times of Israel that the plane ultimately took off for Rhodes in Greece and refueled there before flying on to Israel.

According to Israeli news outlet Mako, the plane was on the tarmac at the Turkish airport for about two hours.

A passenger on the flight, identified only as Avner, told Mako that passengers were informed that local airport workers would be refueling the plane, but "the ground crew was not cooperating."

An unnamed Turkish diplomatic source told The Times of Israel that "fuel was to be provided to the plane due to humanitarian considerations, but as the relevant procedure was about to be completed, the captain decided to leave of his own accord."

Last year, Antalya was one of Israeli tourists' most popular vacation destinations, according to Mako.

However, since the Hamas terror attacks on October 7 in Israel, and the subsequent invasion of Gaza, all direct flights between Israel and Turkey have been canceled.

In May, Turkey stopped all trade with Israel over the war in Gaza and sought to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan has also ratcheted up his criticism of Israel, calling it a "terrorist state" in November last year.

In response, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he wouldn't be lectured by a leader who "bombs Kurdish villages."