• Three BA flights had to make U-turns on Saturday, delaying hundreds of passengers.
• One diversion was due to a problem with the traffic collision avoidance system, per Airlinerwatch.
• The Independent estimated the airline could have to pay out $800,000 in compensation.

Three British Airways flights had to turn back around on Saturday, causing hundreds of passengers to endure delays up to 21 hours.

The Independent predicted that the UK's flag carrier could have to pay out $800,000 in compensation as a result. That's based on its estimate of 700 departing passengers and the same number of arrivals being affected.

An afternoon flight from London Heathrow Airport to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was the first to run into problems. Less than two hours into the six-hour journey, BA263 turned around and landed back in London, meaning there was a four-hour flight to nowhere, per data from Flightradar24.

According to The Independent that's because there was a problem with the Boeing 777's traffic collision avoidance system, which is necessary to enter Saudi airspace.

Passengers were booked in London hotels overnight, with a replacement flight arriving in the Saudi capital 21 hours later than initially planned, The Independent reported.

Less than an hour after that first flight took off, another departed Heathrow for the French island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean Sea.

BA586 was more than halfway into the two-hour journey before it too had to turn back to London, landing where it started after three hours in the air, data from Flightradar24 shows.

Its passengers also had to wait until the next day to reach their destination, arriving 20 hours late, according to The Independent.

Then another flight destined for Boston took off from Heathrow around 5 p.m, but was in the air for just 16 minutes before it had to U-turn, and airport congestion left it circling south of London before landing again, per Flightradar24.

Saturday's disruption came less than a week after the UK's air traffic control system malfunctioned at the end of a holiday weekend.

In a statement shared with Insider, a British Airways spokesperson said: "We are extremely sorry for the delay to our customers' journeys. We would never operate a flight unless it was safe to do so, and our teams worked hard to get customers on their way again as quickly as possible."

Watch: A glitch in air traffic control left thousands of travelers stranded

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