British Airways has apologised after a technical issue triggered a wave of flight delays across the US and the Caribbean.
The airline said problems with its third-party flight planning supplier were behind the delays, as customers reported disruption in departing cities including Denver, New York and Miami.
Writing on Twitter, passengers – including the British actor and model Liz Hurley – reported delays of up to 20 hours, with some complaining of a lack of communication from the airline.
Hurley, 57, said she had been stranded at Antigua airport for 20 hours. “Stranded at Antigua airport with no food or water, taxis or hotels offered yet. Plane delayed 20 hours,” she wrote.
She later added: “Still stranded – no food, water or hotel. Pretty dodgy service.”
@British_Airways Stranded at Antigua airport with no food or water, taxis or hotels offered yet. Plane delayed 20 hours.
— Elizabeth Hurley (@ElizabethHurley) December 20, 2022
@British_Airways kept us in denver sitting around for over 7 hours, pretending they’d figure the situation out, and ultimately boarded us and deplaned us. Little to no answers about anything or what to do. Worst airline I’ve ever used. Scumbags doing this around Christmas time.
— Greem (@dankular3) December 20, 2022
@British_Airways stuck at the gate at JFK for nearly 3 hours due to a “system wide” problem. Please update us??
— Jeff Kaminsky (@JSKaminsky) December 20, 2022
Others complained of a lack of compensation for the delays.
3 hour delay so far at JFK thanks to @British_Airways. Queued for 30 minutes to get a $9 food/ drink voucher. Almost all food in the airport costs more than that. Disgrace. pic.twitter.com/GjCzTKaaRD
— Joey Tindall (@JoeyTindall4) December 20, 2022
The airline said later the issue had been resolved.
In a statement, British Airways said: “Our teams have now resolved a temporary issue that affected some of our long-haul flight planning systems overnight, which resulted in delays to our schedule. We’re sorry for the disruption caused to our customers’ travel plans.”
The issue did not affect flights that had already departed and was not a safety issue. Short-haul flights were unaffected.
In an earlier statement, the airline said: “Our flights due to depart the USA tonight are currently delayed due to a technical issue with our third-party flight planning supplier, which we are urgently investigating.
“We’re sorry for any disruption this will cause to our customers’ plans, our aim is for these flights to depart as quickly as possible.”
