Some British Airways flights took off from Heathrow and Gatwick airports on Sunday after the company was brought to its knees by a computer systems failure on Saturday morning that has problems for the company in the UK and overseas.
A BA spokesman said the company now aims to operate most scheduled services due to leave from Heathrow and claims that Gatwick is pretty much back to normal.
Heathrow passengers can expect further delays and cancellations with huge queues at Terminal 5 formed by exhausted and angry passengers.
Many BA customers spent the night sleeping at Heathrow airport with many complaining of a lack of information from BA airport staff and other that their luggage was untraceable.
On Sunday, BA’s CEO, Alex Cruz, issued a video on Twitter to inform customers that many of the company’s computer systems are working again, adding, "all my British Airways colleagues on the ground and in the air are pulling out all the stops to get our operation back up to normal as quickly as we possibly can, we're not there yet."
Cruz said BA’s long haul services from Heathrow would take off, although subject to delays and further short haul flights would be cancelled.
Passengers are being kept out of Terminal 5 until 90 minutes before their flight is due to take off and passengers scheduled to leave from Gatwick or Heathrow, but whose flights were cancelled, have been told to stay away unless they have a definite place on another flight.
The systems failure hit British Airways’ its call centres, booking management systems and website. The exact number of cancelled flights has not been reported and Cruz said there was no evidence of any cyber attack.
This incident happened at a time when many families had booked holidays overseas as Monday is a bank holiday and it is school half-term for many pupils.
In addition to the financial loss BA is suffering, its image and reputation has suffered in just one day at a time when its short-haul business is under intense pressure from low-cost carriers.
BA is not alone as in the recent past Delta Air Lines, Lufthansa and Air France all have suffered global system outages which prevented them from allowing passengers on board.
It’s how BA handles things that will determine how quickly its reputation will rebound into positive territory but with staff on the ground unable to access information help on BA computer systems, the information available to disseminate was itself lacking.
