British Airways says it has resolved an issue with its check-in and flight departure systems, but warns there may be some "knock-on operational disruption" as flights return to normal.
A systems failure affecting some UK airports caused the airline to use manual check-in processes for most of the day, with passengers also unable to check-in through the carrier’s app or website. A separate issue with a flight departure system forced BA to cancel nearly 100 flights at Heathrow and Gatwick and delay more than 200 others, according to the BBC.
The issues had a knock-on effect on the rest of BA’s processes, with some flights experiencing delays and others resulting in cancellations, mostly on short-haul services from London airports.
BA has advised passengers to continue checking the latest flight information before departing for the airport.
However, BA said the situation “may be liable to change at short notice” and that the system failure is not a global issue. It also said not every UK airport is experiencing problems.
Some passengers said on social media that they experienced long queues and had trouble with the British Airways app crashing. One customer said his flight was stuck on the ground because the pilot couldn’t “get data”.
The system issues come as BA continues negotiations with pilots in an effort to avoid strikes.
BA has suffered similar IT problems in the past, with a 2017 failure caused by a worker accidentally switching off power to the systems leading to nearly 700 flight cancellations.