The Qantas aircraft that was grounded in Azerbaijan last Friday is due to start its journey back home to Australia on Monday evening and return to service later in the week.

The Airbus A380 aircraft was on its way to London from Singapore two days before Christmas when a faulty sensor indicated there could be smoke in the cargo hold, prompting its pilots to ground the aircraft at Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku.

The sensor has since been replaced and the aircraft has been deemed safe to operate by the airlines engineers and an Airbus representative.

Another A380 departed Sydney on Saturday morning for Baku to rescue the passengers who found themselves in Azerbaijan instead of London. The second A380 arrived in Heathrow on Christmas morning, two days after their scheduled arrival.

Some passengers did not wait to board the recovery aircraft, choosing instead to buy new flights to get them to their destinations.

A Qantas spokesperson said the second A380 was one of the operational spares the carrier has on standby over the holiday season to “help recover customers in the event of an unexpected disruption like this.”

“Having these aircraft and additional pilots and cabin crew on standby has provided flexibility to operate the recovery flight at short notice and minimise the disruption to customers,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

While Heydar Aliyev International Airport boasts one of the longest runways in the region and is accustomed to hosting aircraft forced to make emergency landings on occasion, it’s far from where the closest Qantas engineers are based, let alone its home airports, complicating the recovery process.