Lech Poznan's Europa League second-leg tie against KI Klaksvik has been postponed by 24 hours after extreme fog in the Faroe Islands forced the Polish champions' chartered flight to be rerouted thousands of kilometres off course.

The fixture, due to kick off at 6.30pm local time on Thursday, was pushed back to Friday at 7pm after Lech were unable to land at Vagar Airport — the only commercial airport in the Faroes, a self-governing archipelago of around 56,000 people in the North Atlantic Ocean.

A journey that never took off

Lech had originally planned to fly out on Wednesday, but local Faroese weather conditions meant the plane never even left the ground. Coach Niels Frederiksen warned his squad that a decision could not be put off forever, insisting the club could not "just postpone, postpone, and postpone" its planned departure.

Frederiksen reassured his players: "If we fly Thursday and play that day then we will have to leave quite early, so we still have the possibility to rest."

The journey was attempted again on Thursday morning, but conditions were deemed too dangerous for an attempted landing. According to plane-tracking website Flightradar, Lech's plane was held in a holding pattern off the west coast of Norway — around 850km to the east of the Faroes — for 40 minutes before being diverted to Bergen on Norway's west coast.

No landings for much of the day

Flightradar data showed that no planes landed in the Faroes at all throughout Wednesday, and after three landings between 7.23am and 7.58am on Thursday there followed another five-hour delay brought on by the weather. The squad eventually touched down safely at Vagar Airport at 3.30pm after setting off again from Bergen.

With the match set for the capital Torshavn, a 47km drive to the east, UEFA initially delayed the kick-off by two hours and 15 minutes to 8.45pm local time, confirming to The Athletic that Lech were "making every effort to reach their final destination as soon as possible." However, later on Thursday the game was officially postponed until Friday, with a 7pm start.

Common disruption in the Faroes

Disruption is a familiar theme for travelling sides in the Faroes this summer. Hamrun Spartans of Malta and Slovenia's Koper both endured delays into Vagar ahead of their European ties against local side NSI Runavik, each game facing a delayed kick-off as a result.

Lech used a chartered plane for their journey rather than Atlantic Airways, the national airline whose pilots are specially trained for landing in the frequently challenging local conditions at Vagar Airport.