Heathrow turbulence ending
British Airways (BA) resumed some flights from Britain’s two biggest airports on Sunday after a global computer system failure created chaos. However, hundreds of passengers are still waiting for hours at London’s Heathrow.
The airline operated all its India flights on Sunday.
BA operates a double daily service from London to Mumbai and Delhi and a single daily service to Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.
BA had cancelled five flights arriving in India on Sunday morning and passengers were rebooked on other flights or given hotel accommodation.
A BA spokesperson said all flights between London and India on Sunday were on schedule.
BA said it aimed to operate the majority of services from Heathrow and a near normal schedule from Gatwick, the capital’s second busiest airport. Heathrow, however, said it expected further delays and cancellations of flights.
At Heathrow’s Terminal 5, where BA is the dominant carrier, hundreds were waiting in line on Sunday and flight arrival boards showed cancelled flights.
Some passengers were curled under blankets on the floor or sleeping on luggage trolleys. Several others complained about a lack of information from BA representatives at the airport. Others said their luggage had been lost.
“Many of our IT (information technology) systems are back up today (Sunday),” Alex Cruz, chairman and chief executive of BA, said in a video posted on Twitter.
“All my BA colleagues on the ground and in the air are pulling out all the stops to get our operation back up to normal as quickly as we possibly can. We’re not there yet.” Cruz said BA, part of Europe’s largest airline group, IAG, planned to fly all its long-haul services from Heathrow on Sunday, although there would be delays due to the knock on impact from Saturday’s disruption and some short-haul flights would be cancelled.
He also asked passengers not to arrive at Heathrow too early, warning they would not be admitted into Terminal 5 until 90 minutes before a flight’s scheduled departure time.
Gatwick and Heathrow also told passengers not to travel to the airports unless they were rebooked on other flights.
BA cancelled all its flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday after a power supply problem disrupted its flight operations worldwide and also hit its call centres and website.
Cruz said there was no evidence of any cyber attack. A spokeswoman for BA could not detail the number of flights cancelled on Saturday.