British Airways flights disrupted after airline suffers ‘technical issue’

British Airways flights were hit by major disruption on Friday evening after the airline suffered what it said was a “technical issue”.

Around a dozen flights due to depart from London Heathrow were delayed, according to the airport’s departures board, and videos posted on social media showed lengthy check-in queues.

However inbound British Airways flights appeared to be landing without delays.

A spokesperson for the flag carrier said flights were still operating and passengers were being checked in.

They said the airline was “working hard to resolve a technical issue” after its website and app appeared to be down.

In a statement British Airways said: “We’re investigating and working hard to resolve a technical issue and apologise for the inconvenience.

“We will provide further updates as quickly as possible. We’re operating flights and checking customers in.”

The airline denied the disruption was linked to a cyberattack, amid heightened fears that such a situation could occur following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of the GCHQ eavesdropping intelligence agency, had warned companies and organisations to bolster their online defences against cyberattacks after Russia invaded Ukraine.

Heathrow Airport said its systems were operating as normal.

Users on Twitter posted messages asking BA when the problem would be fixed, with one customer showing a video of lengthy queues at check-in for what he said was a Miami to London flight, while another user posted pictures of blank screens.

“@British_Airways can you please just give your customers an update?” one person said on Twitter.

Another wrote: “Really shoddy @British_Airways for leaving plane (2775) full of passengers on the tarmac at LHR for over an hour since landing with zero news about the buses supposed to be coming to liberate us. Please help…”

British Airways was hit by separate systems failures earlier this week, and suffered a major computer crash in 2017 that stranded 75,000 passengers.

Additional reporting by Reuters