FLIGHT operator British Airways was left red-faced after it emerged the company's inflight maps appeared to show Stansted Airport as being in Kent.

The company confirmed the error and admitted the country's third busiest airport appeared to be shown in the wrong place, but stressed this was not on a map used by pilots.

A BA spokesman said: "Our inflight map - used only by passengers as part of the inflight entertainment system - does show the location of a place called Stansted in Kent. While the map does not refer to this place as the location of Stansted Airport specifically, we accept the suppliers of the system likely meant to portray this as the location of Stansted Airport in Essex."

BA is now in talks with the supplier to clarify the situation and discuss changes to the map to avoid any confusion among customers.

A Stansted Airport spokesman said: "I can confirm the airport is in Essex. We have almost 25 million passengers a year and they don't seem to have any problems finding us - the whole issue with BA''s map is more amusing than anything else."