Taking the reins of what used to be the most popular car show on the planet has its ups and downs, but mostly downs in this case.
The latest story on the show comes from TheSun, which states that the airliner carrying Sabine Schmitz, Rory Reid and Eddie Jordan, along with around 40 film crew members, were denied access to Kazakhstan, after flying to Moscow on Saturday to catch a connecting flight.
Following a dispute between Russian airliner Aeroflot and Kazakhstani officials, their plane never left the ground, forcing the team to return to the United Kingdom without filming anything. A BBC insider said that the Top Gear crew “had no fault” and they had “all the correct visas, but this issue was down between Aeroflot and Kazakhstan and everyone on the flight was told to get off.“
Quoting Russian news agency Tass, the British paper writes that Aeroflot’s flights to Kazakhstan had been suspended on Saturday, after the country “had failed to provide permission documentation“.
The aborted trip ended up costing the television network a reported £500,000 ($720,000), but BBC is said to recoup these costs, as “the show has insurance to cover stuff like this“. Top Gear will return to Kazakhstan in the future to shoot the planned segment.