Passengers tell of travel chaos as scores of flights cancelled
BRITISH Airways cancelled more than 100 flights at the UK’s two busiest airports after suffering IT problems with its checkin system.
Thousands of passengers were affected yesterday after the airline axed 117 flights due to operate to or from Heathrow and 10 at Gatwick, while delaying more than 300 others.
Images showed long queues of passengers at the London airports, and error messages on the BA app as some services lagged more than five hours behind schedule.
The technical glitch was fixed yesterday afternoon but not before around 20,000 passengers had flights cancelled.
BA could face a compensation bill in excess of £8m if all those affected claim what they are entitled to under EU rules.
Darren Rowe, from the Cotswolds, said his 10.20am flight to Hamburg from Heathrow for business meetings was cancelled before “all chaos let loose”.
He said: “There were massive queues, it was queue here, queue there, nobody was saying anything. The lack of information was just pathetic.
“They could have had somebody come around with water, updating people about what was going on.”
A BA spokesman said: “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.
“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.”
The airline is offering short-haul passengers departing from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City the chance to re-book to another day between today and next Tuesday.
BA’s IT problems come after it suffered a major computer failure over the spring bank holiday weekend in May 2017, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and costing owner AIG around £80 million.
On that occasion the airline cancelled 726 flights due to a power failure, sparking a raft of compensation claims for flight costs, train and hotel expenses, replacement clothes and toiletries.
Yesterday holidaymakers faced a struggle even getting to Gatwick after the Gatwick Express train service from London Victoria was cancelled.
A fire on the tracks between Victoria and Clapham Junction saw all early-morning Southern and Gatwick Express trains cancelled.
Tim Willcox said passengers were “seething” as he endured a “nightmare” start to a planned short break in Nice, France, with his wife, Najah.
The BBC presenter was stranded on the 5.30am Gatwick Express for 20 minutes outside Victoria, put on another train which was also cancelled, and missed his 7.25am flight.