New BA glitch causes check-in ‘carnage’

WAITING GAME Queues at Gatwick HEATHROW and Gatwick suffered “carnage” yesterday after British Airways’ seventh IT crash in a year.

Passengers at Britain’s two busiest airports were stuck in queues for up to two hours at check-in desks .

BA’s technical fault lasted 20 minutes but the backlog took most of the morning to clear. Flights from London to destinations including Malaga, Athens, Milan, Malta and Glasgow were hit.

Amanda Jayne Porter tweeted from Heathrow: “T5 is absolute carnage. Very unhappy customers.”

BA’s latest glitch, for which it apologised, came after the airline’s systems crashed globally with more than 670 flights cancelled over the spring bank holiday. There has been speculation that BA’s new Global Distribution System is at the root of the problem.

Meanwhile, Brits returned from Europe yesterday after delays of up to four hours. New rules, hitting people from nations outside Europe’s Schengen zone, like the UK, require passport control to check everyone against Interpol records.