SAN FRANCISCO, MAY 27, (THEWILL) – A major failure of its computer systems has forced British Airways, BA, to cancel all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6pm on Saturday. It is however ruling out cyber attack as reason for the failure.
The airline explained that its terminals at both airports had become “extremely congested” due to the computer problems which is causing very severe disruption to its global operations.
It had therefore decided to cancel all flights from the duo of Heathrow and Gatwick, which are UK’s biggest airports, before 6pm UK time on Saturday.
There were reports of BA staff telling disgruntled passengers trying to get away for the Bank Holiday weekend that the company was under cyber attack, a claim that has been denied by the airline.
The systems failure has struck on one of the busiest travelling days of the year in the UK, coinciding with the start of a bank holiday weekend and the half-term break for some schools.
Passenger Jo Josson said: “Officials are telling us there has been a cyber attack against BA’s systems. Even the tannoy is affected.”
Another, Michele Andjel, said a British Airways flight captain announced: “It appears to be a cyber attack.”
Angry passengers took to social media to disclose that their flights aren’t taking off, that there are huge queues at check-in, and that they cannot use the app or website.
Some others have reported that they are not able to use the airline’s website and app with one saying he had to miss his flight as he couldn’t fetch his boarding pass
But BA responded thus: “Please do not come to the airports.
“We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this is causing our customers and we are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, travellers have been told to check ba.comand its Twitter account for updates about the situation. This was as there were complaints of “disgraceful” customer service from BA staff, while other travellers said the IT outage had caused “carnage” at airports.
British filmmaker, Philip Bloom, had stated that he had been waiting on board a Heathrow-bound flight at Belfast.
He tweeted, “Stuck on a @British_Airways plane at Belfast going nowhere. ‘BA computers down worldwide’ whatever that means! # British airways.
“Sat on tarmac @ #belfast as #britishairways computers r down worldwide. Have they tried turning them off& on again?”
The airline promptly responded thus; “We apologise for the current IT systems outage. We are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.”
Bloom later tweeted: “Looks like our @British_Airwaysplane is going to take off now from Belfast. Computer problem solved? #britishairways”
In response, British Airways tweeted; “We’re glad to hear it, Philip. We hope the delay doesn’t impact any onward travel plans, and we’re sorry for any frustration caused.”
Twenty-eight-year old Londoner, Terry Page, was booked on a flight to Texas but was left stuck in a queue at Terminal 5 in Heathrow Airport for two hours.
He claimed BA “made no announcements at all” about the delays and added: “I tried to use their website to get a screenshot of my boarding pass – but the website isn’t working either.
“Hey @British_Airways, couldn’t log in to the app with my boarding pass on because systems were down and I missed my flight. What can I do?”
“We’ve tried all of the self check-in machines; none were working, apart from one. There was a huge queue for it and it later transpired that it didn’t actually work, but you didn’t discover that until you got to the front.
“Then we queued for about an hour and a half with lots of people pushing in front to catch earlier flights,” Page added.
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