diff --git a/qurator/dinglehopper/align.py b/qurator/dinglehopper/align.py
index 861b8a6..cc96891 100644
--- a/qurator/dinglehopper/align.py
+++ b/qurator/dinglehopper/align.py
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ def seq_align(s1, s2):
         try:
             ot = ops[0]
             if ot[1] == i and ot[2] == j:
-                ops = ops[1:]
+                del ops[0]
                 o = ot
         except IndexError:
             pass
diff --git a/qurator/dinglehopper/edit_distance.py b/qurator/dinglehopper/edit_distance.py
index b50f006..24f6928 100644
--- a/qurator/dinglehopper/edit_distance.py
+++ b/qurator/dinglehopper/edit_distance.py
@@ -40,4 +40,4 @@ def editops(word1, word2):
     """
     word1 = list(grapheme_clusters(unicodedata.normalize("NFC", word1)))
     word2 = list(grapheme_clusters(unicodedata.normalize("NFC", word2)))
-    return Levenshtein.editops(word1, word2)
+    return Levenshtein.editops(word1, word2).as_list()