British Airways passengers suffered a second day of cancelled and delayed flights to and from Scotland following a computer fault.
British Airways has come under pressure to improve its IT systems and communication with passengers after cancelling flights due to technical issues since Saturday.
The airline cancelled all short-haul flights from Heathrow until midday on Saturday, but the airport’s online departure board showing further BA cancelations throughout the day.
Hundreds queued at airports as delays dragged into Saturday afternoon, with some saying they were running late for holidays after waiting for years to go abroad due to pandemic cancellations.
Issues continued into the afternoon and evening of Saturday and passengers were left “stuck” at the airport or struggled to be reunited with their luggage.
Some flights in and out of Heathrow continued to be hit with some passengers taking to social media to complain about the disruption.
A statement from Heathrow said: “Due to technical issues affecting British Airways systems yesterday, there could be further disruption to BA flights this morning.
“If your flight has been cancelled, please do not travel to the airport.”
And a similar message for British Airways said the system issues experienced on Saturday have been resolved and the “vast majority” of flights today are expected to run.
It added: “We have regrettably had to cancel a small number of short-haul services due to the impact of the disruption this weekend with some of our crews and aircraft now out of position.
BA said the problem, which was also expected to cause potential delays for its customers using Gatwick and London City Airport, is related to a hardware issue and is not because of a cyber attack.
The major outage has caused cancellations and delays of flights, pile-ups of luggage and passengers stuck on planes after landing at Heathrow.
BA’s website and app were inaccessible for hours on Friday evening, preventing customers from checking in online or booking flights, while on Saturday passengers criticised the “absolute chaos” at Heathrow.
Paul Charles, chief executive of travel consultancy The PC Agency, said ongoing technical issues “don’t fill consumers with much confidence”, adding: “BA needs to be transparent on what’s causing these issues and how soon they will be fixed.”
Meanwhile, Which? consumer law expert Lisa Webb said BA should offer customers the option of another route, with another airline where necessary, if their flight has been cancelled.
She said: “This is not the first time that BA has experienced technical issues, causing the postponement of flights and leaving passengers to pay the price.
“In events such as these, airlines should be offering the option of a refund or to reroute passengers on any reasonable route as quickly as possible, using other airlines where necessary.”
Ms Webb said BA must also give clear information to affected customers about their entitlement to compensation.
It is BA’s second outage in 10 days and the latest of several high-profile IT incidents to hit the airline.
Last summer, BA settled a legal claim over a major data breach that affected 420,000 customers and staff.
The breach in 2018 included the leaking of names, addresses and card payment details and led to the Information Commissioner’s Office handing out a fine of £20 million.
On July 18 2018, computer problems hit BA operations at Heathrow and the airline cancelled a number of short-haul flights after the incident involving a “supplier IT system”.
In May 2017, 75,000 bank holiday travellers were stranded after a glitch forced the airline to cancel nearly 726 flights over three days.
The outage was suspected to have been caused by human error after an engineer disconnected and then reconnected a power supply to the data centre in an “uncontrolled and uncommanded fashion”.
The meltdown was blamed by some on aggressive cost-cutting and outsourcing of jobs.
BA said customers due to travel on Saturday should check ba.com before going to the airport, adding: “We are extremely sorry that due to the continuing technical issues we are facing we have regrettably had to cancel a significant number of short-haul flights from Heathrow today.”
The airline said its long-haul services at Heathrow and all flights at Gatwick and London City Airport are due to operate as planned, but that customers “may experience some delays”.
BA said it is offering customers on cancelled services the option of a refund or to rebook on to another service, adding: “We know we have let our customers down and we will do everything we can to make this up to them
"Our teams have worked around the clock to resolve the technical issues we’ve experienced, and the vast majority of our flights today are due to operate as planned," said BA
"Unfortunately, with some of our crew and aircraft out of position as a result of the weekend’s disruption, we’ve regrettably had to cancel a small number of short-haul flights.
"We’ve been in touch with affected customers to apologise and offer them the choice of a refund or to rebook onto another service.
"We’re asking customers due to travel with us today to check ba.com for the latest flight information before they leave for the airport and to check-in online if possible."
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