British Airways cancels all flights from Gatwick and Heathrow due to IT failure British Airways cancels all flights from Gatwick and Heathrow due to IT failure
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Hundreds of flights at the two airports have been affected,
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Hundreds of flights at the two airports have been affected,
British Airways has cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday due to a major IT failure that is causing very severe disruption to its global operations.
The airline said that its terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick had become “extremely congested” due to the computer problems. It decided to cancel all flights from both airports before 6pm UK time on Saturday. “Please do not come to the airports,” BA said.
A later statement said the airline had been forced to cancel all remaining flights scheduled to depart from the UK’s largest two airports on Saturday. The computer crash affected BA’s booking system, baggage handling, mobile phone apps and check-in desks, leaving passengers facing long queues and confusion in airports or delays while planes were held on runways. More than 1,000 flights have been affected. At Heathrow alone, BA had 406 flights scheduled to depart after 9am and a further 71 at Gatwick, according to flightstats.com on Saturday.
“Following the major IT system failure experienced earlier today, with regret we have had to cancel all flights leaving from Heathrow and Gatwick for the rest of Saturday,” a spokeswoman said. Please bring back my old British Airways Victoria Coren Mitchell Read more “We are working hard to get our customers who were due to fly today on to the next available flights over the course of the rest of the weekend. Those unable to fly will be offered a full refund.
The system outage has also affected our call centres and our website but we will update customers as soon as we are able to.” BA said the disruption could continue into Sunday but experts believe passengers will be affected for several more days. Air industry consultant John Strickland said there was a “massive knock-on effect” because planes and crew were all in the wrong places.
The spokeswoman said: “We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this is causing our customers during this busy holiday period.” Travellers have been told to check ba.com and its Twitter account for updates about the situation. The IT 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. Trouble struck BA on Saturday morning, some time before 9am, when travellers using automatic check-in machines and mobile phone apps reported being unable to access their flight details. BA staff were reduced to using whiteboards to show flight details at Heathrow and lengthy queues formed at check-in desks and departure gates.
Some passengers, such as Henry Tail, 27, from London, missed their flights. “I checked in online using the BA app at 8.15 for my flight at 9.25, then went and had breakfast,” he said. “At some point, the app restarted and when I went to go through security, I couldn’t log in to my booking to get my QR code.
This meant I couldn’t go through security and by the time I’d gone back and forth to various customer service desks, the flight had closed.” By lunchtime, BA had been forced to cancel all flights departing from Gatwick or Heathrow before 6pm and advised its customers not to travel to the airports. By 4.30pm the airline had cancelled flights for the rest of the day. The cause of the system failure was not clear. BA said: “We have experienced a major IT system failure. We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience to our customers and we are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
Given that the Wanna Cry ransom ware attack happened just two weeks ago, there was immediate speculation that BA’s IT systems had been hacked. But BA said: “We’ve found no evidence that it’s a cyber-attack. Advertisement The GMB union said the airline’s decision to outsource hundreds of IT jobs to India last year was behind the problems. Other travellers complained that they had been left in the dark and not informed their flights had been cancelled until more than an hour after the airline put out a press statement.
Terry Page, 28, from London, said of the cancellations: “There’s no such announcement here. The boards are showing ‘go to gate’ and no mention of cancellations.” More than an hour later, he said cancellations of individual flights were still being announced. Footage filmed at the terminal showed long queues at customer services after passengers were advised that they would be unable to rebook due to systems remaining down.
Student Emily Wilson said that she had been advised “we are unable to get bags, and that no more flights are taking off” several hours after arriving for a flight to Stockholm. Wilson added: “We were told (it would be) about three hours for collecting bags, that all compensation will have to be done online and that we are unable to rebook flights now because of the system being down.” She said that information on screens still suggested her flight could board shortly but that staff contradicted that information, saying there were “no slots left”. Dan Power said he and his 80-year-old grandmother were stranded at Heathrow, waiting for a flight to Milan and have had no information from BA.
He told BBC News they have been offered “absolutely nothing” in the way of refreshments. “We haven’t been offered any chairs, any water, any vouchers – nothing,” he said. “I don’t think our week’s holiday will happen at this rate. My main concern now is I don’t want my 80-year-old grandma spending the night on Heathrow floor – but all the hotels are fully booked, we don’t have any transport back up north, so we are actually stuck in Heathrow with nowhere to go.” Melissa Davis was held for more than an hour and a half on the tarmac at Heathrow, on board a BA flight returning from Belfast.
Speaking from the plane, Davis said the air conditioning had been off “so I don’t think we will be going anywhere any time soon” but added that the passengers had been kept informed by their pilot and given water while they remained seated. She later said she and others were then told they could not transfer to other flights because “they can’t bring up our details”. Travellers to the UK were also badly affected. Alma Saffari and her 13-month-old baby were trying to fly from Marseille to Heathrow. She told the BBC: “When we finally boarded, the captain came out and told us their computer systems were down worldwide. After sitting on the tarmac for an hour and a half, we disembarked.” It comes a day after passengers at Gatwick airport faced chaotic scenes and long queues due to a baggage system problem.
Those taking flights on Friday were forced to travel without their hold bags and were asked to carry any essential items in their hand luggage. Saturday’s disruption took place as some BA customers continue to criticise the airline’s customer services. It has adapted in order to compete with cheaper fares offered by easyJet and other budget airlines. Gatwick baggage system failure forces passengers to fly without luggage Read more The airline has abolished free meals on flights shorter than five hours.
Instead passengers can now buy Marks & Spencer sandwiches and other food items. BA has said that passengers welcomed the choice but some question whether it is worth flying with the airline given that there is little to distinguish its service levels from those of no-frills rivals such as Ryanair. BA offers cheaper fares for passengers with hand luggage only, mirroring the baggage charges imposed by budget carriers.
Cancelled flight? Know your rights Passengers have some rights under EU law to claim compensation for delayed or cancelled flights for services that departed within the EU or were operated by a European airline. Delays of more than three hours for short-haul flights (up to 1,500km or 930 miles) attract compensation of €250 (£218); while the figure is €400 for medium-haul trips (1,500km to 3,500km). For long-haul flights (more than 3,500km), delays of between three and four hours have compensation set at €300; for delays of longer than four hours the figure is €600. Airlines are required to give passengers food and drinks for delays of more than two hours, as well as hotel accommodation for overnight delays and transfers.
A later statement said the airline had been forced to cancel all remaining flights scheduled to depart from the UK’s largest two airports on Saturday. The computer crash affected BA’s booking system, baggage handling, mobile phone apps and check-in desks, leaving passengers facing long queues and confusion in airports or delays while planes were held on runways. More than 1,000 flights have been affected. At Heathrow alone, BA had 406 flights scheduled to depart after 9am and a further 71 at Gatwick, according to flightstats.com on Saturday.
“Following the major IT system failure experienced earlier today, with regret we have had to cancel all flights leaving from Heathrow and Gatwick for the rest of Saturday,” a spokeswoman said. Please bring back my old British Airways Victoria Coren Mitchell Read more “We are working hard to get our customers who were due to fly today on to the next available flights over the course of the rest of the weekend. Those unable to fly will be offered a full refund.
The system outage has also affected our call centres and our website but we will update customers as soon as we are able to.” BA said the disruption could continue into Sunday but experts believe passengers will be affected for several more days. Air industry consultant John Strickland said there was a “massive knock-on effect” because planes and crew were all in the wrong places.
The spokeswoman said: “We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience this is causing our customers during this busy holiday period.” Travellers have been told to check ba.com and its Twitter account for updates about the situation. The IT 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. Trouble struck BA on Saturday morning, some time before 9am, when travellers using automatic check-in machines and mobile phone apps reported being unable to access their flight details. BA staff were reduced to using whiteboards to show flight details at Heathrow and lengthy queues formed at check-in desks and departure gates.
Some passengers, such as Henry Tail, 27, from London, missed their flights. “I checked in online using the BA app at 8.15 for my flight at 9.25, then went and had breakfast,” he said. “At some point, the app restarted and when I went to go through security, I couldn’t log in to my booking to get my QR code.
This meant I couldn’t go through security and by the time I’d gone back and forth to various customer service desks, the flight had closed.” By lunchtime, BA had been forced to cancel all flights departing from Gatwick or Heathrow before 6pm and advised its customers not to travel to the airports. By 4.30pm the airline had cancelled flights for the rest of the day. The cause of the system failure was not clear. BA said: “We have experienced a major IT system failure. We are extremely sorry for the inconvenience to our customers and we are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.”
Given that the Wanna Cry ransom ware attack happened just two weeks ago, there was immediate speculation that BA’s IT systems had been hacked. But BA said: “We’ve found no evidence that it’s a cyber-attack. Advertisement The GMB union said the airline’s decision to outsource hundreds of IT jobs to India last year was behind the problems. Other travellers complained that they had been left in the dark and not informed their flights had been cancelled until more than an hour after the airline put out a press statement.
Terry Page, 28, from London, said of the cancellations: “There’s no such announcement here. The boards are showing ‘go to gate’ and no mention of cancellations.” More than an hour later, he said cancellations of individual flights were still being announced. Footage filmed at the terminal showed long queues at customer services after passengers were advised that they would be unable to rebook due to systems remaining down.
Student Emily Wilson said that she had been advised “we are unable to get bags, and that no more flights are taking off” several hours after arriving for a flight to Stockholm. Wilson added: “We were told (it would be) about three hours for collecting bags, that all compensation will have to be done online and that we are unable to rebook flights now because of the system being down.” She said that information on screens still suggested her flight could board shortly but that staff contradicted that information, saying there were “no slots left”. Dan Power said he and his 80-year-old grandmother were stranded at Heathrow, waiting for a flight to Milan and have had no information from BA.
He told BBC News they have been offered “absolutely nothing” in the way of refreshments. “We haven’t been offered any chairs, any water, any vouchers – nothing,” he said. “I don’t think our week’s holiday will happen at this rate. My main concern now is I don’t want my 80-year-old grandma spending the night on Heathrow floor – but all the hotels are fully booked, we don’t have any transport back up north, so we are actually stuck in Heathrow with nowhere to go.” Melissa Davis was held for more than an hour and a half on the tarmac at Heathrow, on board a BA flight returning from Belfast.
Speaking from the plane, Davis said the air conditioning had been off “so I don’t think we will be going anywhere any time soon” but added that the passengers had been kept informed by their pilot and given water while they remained seated. She later said she and others were then told they could not transfer to other flights because “they can’t bring up our details”. Travellers to the UK were also badly affected. Alma Saffari and her 13-month-old baby were trying to fly from Marseille to Heathrow. She told the BBC: “When we finally boarded, the captain came out and told us their computer systems were down worldwide. After sitting on the tarmac for an hour and a half, we disembarked.” It comes a day after passengers at Gatwick airport faced chaotic scenes and long queues due to a baggage system problem.
Those taking flights on Friday were forced to travel without their hold bags and were asked to carry any essential items in their hand luggage. Saturday’s disruption took place as some BA customers continue to criticise the airline’s customer services. It has adapted in order to compete with cheaper fares offered by easyJet and other budget airlines. Gatwick baggage system failure forces passengers to fly without luggage Read more The airline has abolished free meals on flights shorter than five hours.
Instead passengers can now buy Marks & Spencer sandwiches and other food items. BA has said that passengers welcomed the choice but some question whether it is worth flying with the airline given that there is little to distinguish its service levels from those of no-frills rivals such as Ryanair. BA offers cheaper fares for passengers with hand luggage only, mirroring the baggage charges imposed by budget carriers.
Cancelled flight? Know your rights Passengers have some rights under EU law to claim compensation for delayed or cancelled flights for services that departed within the EU or were operated by a European airline. Delays of more than three hours for short-haul flights (up to 1,500km or 930 miles) attract compensation of €250 (£218); while the figure is €400 for medium-haul trips (1,500km to 3,500km). For long-haul flights (more than 3,500km), delays of between three and four hours have compensation set at €300; for delays of longer than four hours the figure is €600. Airlines are required to give passengers food and drinks for delays of more than two hours, as well as hotel accommodation for overnight delays and transfers.
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