British Airways claims it has fixed the technical issue which caused chaos for thousands of passengers at Heathrow. Flights were grounded and travellers faced long delays because of the IT problem on Wednesday afternoon.
Some passengers reported they were stranded overnight because all hotels were full, with others forced to wait in the airport until they could secure a replacement flight. Food vouchers were supplied for stranded passengers, but accommodation was not provided.
The airline said the fault had affected its operations for “a short time” and was resolved shortly before 5.30pm, the vast majority of flights on the airline’s live tracker were shown as departing late or cancelled from 2pm to 9.30pm.
The airline apologised for the issue and said it “deeply regretted” being forced to cancel flights. It was the second time in the past few weeks that British Airways had been hit by technical issues at Heathrow.
Short-haul flights from the airport were grounded in late February because of another technical problem, whilst it has also struggled with staffing issues. Heathrow airport said it was working with the airline to help affected passengers and advised travellers to check their flight status with BA before travelling to the airport.
A spokesperson said: “A technical issue which affected British Airways this afternoon has now been resolved. We are working with our airport partners to assist passengers whose journeys have been disrupted and have deployed additional resource in our terminals.
“Passengers are still advised to check their flight status with BA before travelling to the airport due to a number of resulting cancellations. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
There were also reports of long queues at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 and passengers being unable to check-in because of a global IT systems failure. Michelle Heinrich, a student and translator from Germany who lives in Coventry, had been due to fly to Germany at 5.40pm on Wednesday.
She said problems had started as early as 2.40pm when passengers tried to check in and drop bags off. When the gate number was due to be announced, passengers were instead told the flight was delayed by two hours.
That time came and went and eventually at around 9pm, a gate number was finally announced. But, as passengers waited to board, they were told the flight had in fact been cancelled.
Ms Heinrich said there was “silence and confusion” among passengers. British Airways staff seemed equally in the dark but “did the best they could” to assist passengers. She added that the only communication from the airline had come half an hour after her flight was cancelled – to say the flight was not going ahead.
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