Chaos continues at London’s Heathrow
London: Thousands of travellers faced further chaos on Sunday as British Airways cancelled around 60 flights from London’s Heathrow airport after an IT system failure. Around one quarter of Sunday’s flights set to depart from London’s major hub were cancelled.
London, May 28: Thousands of travellers faced further chaos on Sunday as British Airways cancelled around 60 flights from London's Heathrow Airport following an IT system failure.
Around one quarter of Sunday’s flights set to depart from London’s major hub before 4.00 pm (1500 GMT) were cancelled as the airline battled to contain the “knock-on disruption” to schedules with aircraft and crews out of position around the world.
British Airways said it was hoping to operate a near-normal schedule of flights from Gatwick, London’s other major airport, and the majority of its Heathrow services.
More flights left Heathrow as the day wore on, but most were operating with delays. Travellers also faced hold-ups at Gatwick, but no flights were cancelled.
BA cancelled all its flights out of the two airports on Saturday after the IT failure, which shut down all of the carrier’s check-in and operational systems and affected call centres and its website.
However, it did not appear to be a cyberattack, according to chairman and chief executive Alex Cruz, who said the root cause appeared to be a “power supply issue”.
Britain is still recovering from a ransomware attack that crippled crucial infrastructure earlier this month, including computer systems at the National Health Service.
BA’s outage came on a busy weekend in Britain, where Monday is a public holiday and many schoolchildren are beginning a week’s holiday.
“This has been a horrible time for customers, some of you have missed holidays, some of you have been stranded on aircraft and some of you have been separated from your bags. Many of you have been stuck in long queues while you waited for information,” Cruz said in a video statement on Sunday. The airline advised passengers not to come to the two airports unless they had confirmed bookings.