Huge IT glitch delays British Airways flights from Heathrow Airport

British Airways suffered an IT systems blackout this afternoon, leaving travellers at Heathrow Airport facing huge delays.

Several passengers took to social media to complain about the a outage as they felt left in the dark over what was happening.

Brendan Dorian tweeted: ‘All Access to airside at Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport currently prohibited, telephone landlines also down… no one going anywhere.’

Another passenger wrote: ‘Another IT failure at Heathrow t5… British Airways systems failure.

‘Check in down, boarding down no information on when it will be back up…looks like a long evening at the airport.’

Will Karkar, posted: ‘Been stuck at Heathrow for 2.5 hours unable to check in with @British_Airways due to them experiencing a “global IT system failure”.’

He added: ‘No one seems to have answers or know what’s going on #BritishAirways.’

However, British Airways have since clarified that the issue was not a ‘global’ system failure as reported.

In a statement, British Airways said: ‘While we were able to resolve the temporary technical issue we experienced earlier today quickly and resume flight operations at Heathrow Terminal 5, we deeply regret that we have now had to cancel some of our flights this evening.

‘We are taking steps to ensure as many customers as possible travel as planned.

‘We have apologised to our customers for the inconvenience we have caused them, are offering to refund or rebook them onto alternative flights and providing refreshment vouchers and hotel accommodation where needed.’

A Heathrow spokesperson said the airport was aware of issues affecting British Airways and was working with the airline to investigate and resolve the issue.

Passengers were advised to check their flight status with BA before travelling to the airport.

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