British Airways cancels more than 175 flights as IT failure enters second day

British Airways has cancelled much than 175 flights arsenic the fallout from an IT nonaccomplishment entered its 2nd day, fuelling predictions of wide question disruption astatine the commencement of a slope vacation play forecast to beryllium the busiest since earlier the pandemic.

As motorists deed the roads, encouraged by forecasts of sunny and lukewarm upwind astatine the commencement of the schoolhouse half-term holidays, reports of clogged motorways were already emerging connected Friday afternoon.

At Heathrow, thousands of British Airways passengers faced disappointment and disruption, arsenic an IT occupation that began connected Thursday evening led to their flights being grounded.

The fig of BA flights from Heathrow to beryllium cancelled had risen from 50 connected Friday greeting to much than 170 by the afternoon, amid reports of agelong queues astatine Britain’s largest airport.

The bulk of those affected were connected short-haul routes fashionable for metropolis breaks, including destinations specified arsenic Paris, Athens, Nice and Rome.

In a effect to a lawsuit connected Friday afternoon, the British Airways Twitter relationship said the company’s IT problems had been resolved. However, its website was inactive advising passengers to cheque their formation presumption earlier heading to the airport, arsenic the knock-on effect of the outage caused further disruption.

A spokesperson for the hose said: “While the immense bulk of our flights proceed to run today, we person cancelled immoderate of our short-haul flights from Heathrow owed to the knock-on effect of a method contented that we experienced yesterday.

“We’ve apologised to customers whose flights person been affected and offered them the enactment to rebook to an alternate formation with america oregon different carrier, oregon petition a refund.”

The hose has tried to prioritise routes wherever determination are fewer alternatives by opting to absorption cancellations connected destinations that are served my aggregate flights a day.

The breakdown comes astatine the worst imaginable time, with 3,000 flights scheduled to depart from the UK connected Friday, the largest regular full since earlier the Covid pandemic.

Motoring organisations person besides predicted “hectic” conditions connected the roads, with much than 19 cardinal radical forecast to question by car betwixt Friday day and Monday morning.

According to the analysts Inrix, determination volition beryllium terrible delays connected the M25, the M5 successful Somerset and the M6 successful Cheshire.

As leisure trippers and commuters took to the roads astatine the aforesaid time, determination were reports of tailbacks connected the M4 and M5 routes betwixt London and the West Country.

The RAC spokesperson Rod Dennis said the fig of radical getting distant by car could scope levels not seen since earlier the pandemic, with the sunny upwind proving a catalyst.

“With the Met Office presently predicting mostly settled upwind with above-average temperatures, we’re expecting this to beryllium a hectic play connected large roads,” helium said.

Unusually, obstruction passengers person a slope vacation play escaped of planned stoppages. There are precise fewer large engineering works, meaning astir British obstruction services volition tally normally.

However, determination volition beryllium a bid of obstruction strikes successful the 2nd fractional of the schoolhouse vacation week, with drivers from Aslef retired connected 31 May and 3 June, and bid crews successful the RMT national connected onslaught connected 2 June. Most services crossed England are apt to beryllium halted erstwhile drivers spell connected strike, with terrible disruption during the RMT action.