A knock-on effect to flights today (Tuesday) is believed likely after British Airways suffered the latest in a series of IT failures.
The glitch affecting some of the airline’s computer systems was reported at around 5pm on Monday and was resolved after about two hours, according to the carrier.
Passengers took to social media to complain about flights being grounded but it remains unclear how widespread the problem was.
However, flights worldwide and domestically are understood to have been affected with the BA’s website going down and phone lines affected.
Delays were reported by passengers across Europe together with flights to and from Heathrow, Gatwick and London City.
BA said flights were operating but subject to delays last night.
The prospect of aircraft being out of position and crews going out of hours raised the potential of disruption today.
A BA spokesperson told national media yesterday: “Our teams worked hard to resolve an issue we experienced for a short time earlier this evening. We’ve apologised to customers for delays to their flights and ensured they were able to reach their destinations as planned.”
BA suffered from previous IT outages in May last year, in spring 2017, disrupting Bank Holiday plans, and in February 2020.
A British Airways spokesperson said: “A technical issue affecting some of our operational systems meant that for a short period on Monday, we were unable to depart flights as quickly as usual. Our back-up network immediately kicked in so our operation could continue and we were able to get our main systems back online within an hour.
“There were no cancellations on our mainline network as a result of this issue. We’ve made significant investment in our IT infrastructure, putting in £750m to replace legacy systems to help prevent outages and recover more quickly when they do occur, which is exactly what happened here.
“We never want to inconvenience customers. We’ve apologised to those who did face delays and we’re grateful to them for their patience, as well as our colleagues who worked so hard to resolve this issue and support customers.”