Sport British Airways sorry for backing England rugby team over Wales

© Provided by The i British Airways made the faux pas on Saturday morning (Photo: PA)

British Airways angered Welsh rugby fans by wishing England good luck in an international involving the two nations over the weekend.

The airline was forced to apologise on Saturday after several Welsh rugby fans, and politicians from the country complained on social media.

BA, which has a sponsorship arrangement with England Rugby, sparked the furious backlash after posting on its Twitter account on Saturday morning.

© Provided by The i The airline posted the controversial good luck message on Twitter on Saturday morning.

In the tweet, the airline wished England luck ahead of their Autumn Nations Cup fixture against Wales in Llanelli later in the day.

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The England national rugby union team represents England in men's international rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales .

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The tweet, which was subsequently deleted, read: “Good Luck to the England Rugby team against Wales today.”

Soon afterwards, several Welsh fans voiced their displeasure on social media – criticising the airline for being partisan.

Welsh health minister Vaughan Gething tweeted: “Good way to annoy 3m+ potential customers.”

Labour MP Chris Bryant described the airline as “utter divots” and added: “How is this right?”

Welsh BBC News presenter Huw Edwards joked: “I love easyJet.”

The phrase “English Airways” began trending on Twitter in the aftermath of the furore, with some fans suggesting the airline should rebrand.

‘English Airways’

YesCymru, the campaign for Welsh independence, tweeted: “To be clear, even when Wales becomes independent, it will still be a constituent part of the island of Britain.

“Your brand isn’t ‘UK Airways,’ it’s ‘British Airways.’

“Regardless, we’ve had enough of this unequal, broken ‘union.”‘

BA apologised for having “strayed offside” with the message, which was later deleted from their Twitter account.

A statement from the airline read: “We are proud sponsors of England Rugby but on this occasion we unintentionally strayed offside, for which we are sorry.”

Additional reporting from the Press Association