British Airways cancels flights after IT glitch

LONDON

British Airways on Wednesday has cancelled all flights in the U.K. after an IT glitch caused a system failure, bringing chaos to vacationers.

The U.K.’s main and busiest airports London Gatwick and London Heathrow were affected by the system failure with flights being delayed or cancelled in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Belfast.

Passengers have been warned the disruption could be felt across Europe as well.

“We are very sorry to our customers for the disruption to their travel plans. We are working as quickly as possible to resolve a systems issue which has resulted in a number of cancellations and delays today,” the airline said in a statement.

“A number of flights continue to operate but we are advising customers to check ba.com for the latest flight information before coming to the airport,” it added.

Up to half of British Airlines flights scheduled to leave Heathrow Airport’s terminal five between 8.30 a.m. GMT and midday were cancelled or delayed.

The flights of the airline were also cancelled on Monday when the airport workers went on a strike over low pay, but were reinstated on Tuesday.

Darren Rowe, a holidaymaker affected by the chaos, posted a picture on Twitter that showed a long queue at a check-in desk and said: “Here we go again! Chaos! This is only half of one queue! My flight cancelled as are 100’s of others. I had checked-in so need my bag back - others told as checked-in can’t leave T5 without checking out! Happy 100th anniversary”.

British Airways faces further disruption as its pilots are threatening to strike over low pay.

In an internal vote in the BALPA, the pilots’ union, 93% of the airline's pilots voted in favor of taking industrial action after rejecting a pay deal with the airline.

British Airways faced other disruptions in the past when another computer system failure left 75,000 passengers stranded at Gatwick and Heathrow in 2017.

This latest disruption also followed an evacuation of a British Airways flight in Spain on Tuesday due to smoke filling the cabin of the plane.