May 28, 2024
British Airways cancels all short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport

British Airways cancels all short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport

British Airways has cancelled all short-haul flights from Heathrow due to “significant” ongoing technical issues.

All of the flag carrier’s departures of this type from the UK’s busiest airport have been suspended until at least midday, the company said.

Customers due to travel later in the day have been advised to check their flight status on the British Airways website before coming to the airport, as the airline anticipates “further disruption during the day”.

While long-haul services at Heathrow and all flights at Gatwick and London City Airport are due to operate as planned, customers could experience some delays, it said.

British Airways flights were hit by major disruption on Friday evening after the airline suffered what it said were “significant technical issues”, with both its website and app appearing to be down.

A number of flights due to depart from Heathrow were delayed or cancelled on Friday evening, according to the airport’s departures board, while videos posted on social media showed lengthy check-in queues.

The airline said on Saturday morning that customers on cancelled services will be offered a full refund and that all customers booked to travel on short-haul services from Heathrow today can opt to rebook to a later date for free.

The problem is related to a hardware issue and is not because of a cyber attack, the airline said, amid fears that Russian hackers could seek to disrupt British infrastructure in retaliation to the UK’s response to Vladimir Putin’s widely-condemned invasion of Ukraine.

“Our teams have been working hard through the night and will continue to do so to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement. “We advise our customers due to travel today to check ba.com for the latest flight information before coming to the airport.

“We know we have let our customers down and we will do everything we can to make this up to them – but for now our focus is on getting as many customers and flights away as we can.”

More to follow…

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