UK flag carrier British Airways has today cancelled all flights from London Heathrow Airport that are due to depart before 1200 UTC and beyond, along with a number of flights from London Gatwick Airport after a systems failure. Passengers are saying that they are unable to check in to their flights and that the British Airways app and website aren’t functioning correctly. The airline claims that two systems are affected: the check-in system and the flight departure system, and stress that the failure isn’t a global systems outage. In addition to flight cancellations, there are severe delays across the airlines network, with more than 200 flights being affected.
Statement issued by British Aiways on Twitter:
— British Airways (@British_Airways) August 7, 2019
British Airways have famously suffered from IT systems failures before. On 27th May 2017, almost all BA flights were cancelled when the entirety of their IT systems crashed, stranding thousands of passengers around the world, with knock on delays and cancellations that lasted for more than a week after. In 2018, the airline admitted that up to 380,000 passengers bank card details had been obtained by hackers, if they had placed a booking within a two week period, between August 21st and September 5th.
Matt is a Berlin-based writer and reporter for International Flight Network. Originally from London, he has been involved in aviation from a very young age and has a particular focus on aircraft safety, accidents and technical details.
