Dozens of British Airways flights delayed by IT failure

Tens of thousands of British Airways passengers faced delays and possible cancellations after a major IT failure yesterday.

- SIMON CALDER

Passengers at London Heathrow Terminal 5, as well as airports abroad, say they were told communications systems had failed.

In one example, flight BA365 from Lyon to Heathrow remained on the ground in France for two hours 40 minutes, rather than the expected hour. The airline’s website, ba.​com, and its app also appeared to be down – after repeated attempts by The Independent to access the site, a message was displayed reading: “We are experiencing high demand on ba.​com at the moment.”

Problems began shortly after 5pm. Some outbound British Airways flights from Heathrow were delayed by up to two hours, including departures to Geneva, Larnaca, Vienna, Vancouver and Dusseldorf.