Polish champions Lech Poznan will finally get their Europa League third qualifying round tie against KI Klaksvik underway on Friday after extreme fog forced a full 24-hour postponement of the fixture.

The second leg was originally scheduled for Thursday evening at 6.30pm local time, but with thick fog grounding all flights into the Faroe Islands, Lech's chartered journey to the remote North Atlantic archipelago turned into a two-day odyssey that eventually involved a diversion to Norway and a second attempt at crossing the North Sea.

A rerouted route to the Faroes

Lech had originally planned to fly out on Wednesday, but local conditions meant the plane never even left the tarmac. When the journey was attempted on Thursday morning, plane-tracking data showed the flight held in a holding pattern off the west coast of Norway — some 850km east of the Faroes — for 40 minutes before being diverted to Bergen on the Norwegian coast.

The Faroe Islands, a self-governing Danish territory home to just 56,000 people, has only one commercial airport in Vagar, and conditions have made landing there notoriously difficult.

“If we fly Thursday and play that day then we will have to leave quite early, so we still have the possibility to rest.”

No planes, three landings, five-hour gap

According to Flightradar, no planes landed in the Faroes throughout Wednesday. Following three landings between 7.23am and 7.58am on Thursday, there was a further five-hour delay due to the continuing poor weather.

Lech attempted the journey again after posting an update from Bergen at 2.13pm Thursday, with the squad eventually landing safely at Vagar Airport at 3.30pm. UEFA initially pushed the kick-off back to 8.45pm local time, with the governing body stressing that Lech were “making every effort to reach their final destination as soon as possible”. However, the decision was later made to postpone the game entirely until Friday, with a 7pm start confirmed.

Familiar territory

Travel disruption into the Faroes is becoming a recurring theme of European summers. This season alone, both Hamrun Spartans of Malta and Slovenia’s Koper endured delays into Vagar Airport ahead of European ties with local side NSI Runavik, with each game facing a delayed kick-off as a result.

Lech were at least flying with a chartered plane rather than relying on Atlantic Airways, the Faroese national airline whose pilots are specifically trained for the region&rsquos frequently challenging landing conditions.

The fixture takes place in the capital Torshavn, a 47km drive east of the airport — giving the Polish side a late scramble across the islands once again on Friday.