British Airways faced more IT outages at Heathrow yesterday, causing flights to be delayed or cancelled. This is the second time that BA has experienced a major IT outage this year.
IT failure at London Heathrow
The British flag carrier has suffered a technical fault at its base in Heathrow Terminal 5. The IT issue caused significant delays to flights, leaving many passengers standing around for hours. According to data from FlightAware, 68 Heathrow flights were cancelled yesterday, with a further 161 experiencing delays. According to the Independent, over 10,000 passengers will be affected by the cancellations. BA said in a statement:
“We experienced a technical issue for a short time this afternoon which affected our operation at Heathrow Terminal 5.
“This has now been resolved, and we’re resuming flight operations. We’ve apologised to customers who have been inconvenienced.”
Customers whose flights have been cancelled are entitled to up to £350 in compensation, new flights on another airline if there is no immediate BA option available; plus accommodation and hot meals whilst they wait. The airline denies claims that the IT outage was global. A spokesperson for Heathrow said:
“Passengers are still advised to check their flight status with British Airways before travelling to the airport due to a number of resulting cancellations. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
BA’s second major outage this year
This is the second time British Airways has faced a major IT failure this year. On 25 February, the airline suffered a widespread outage that lasted two days, affecting thousands of passengers. The issues are longstanding, too; in 2017, an IT outage impacted over 75,000 BA customers. This happened when their data centres went down, and the system failed to access the backup facility. Another outage in 2019 affected over 15,000 passengers.
What are your thoughts on BA’s IT woes? Let us know in the comments below!
This should have been reported as YET ANOTHER IT issue… It’s incomprehensible that in over 5 years of seemingly regular failures the management don’t appear to have done anything to address this. As usual with Beyond Abysmal, it’s the customers who suffer.
Just another reason to FlyABBA!