The airline, no stranger to IT problems, reports that it has now restored crucial flight plan systems that failed during the holiday rush.
British Airways has issued an apology to its customers following a “technical issue” with its flight planning systems that impacted flights from the United States and other parts of the world before Christmas.
BA stated that it had resolved the overnight fault that halted numerous long-haul flights before their scheduled departures and left many passengers angry on social media.
Possibly among them was the actress Liz Hurley, who tweeted that she had been detained in Antigua for 20 hours with no food or water, transportation, or motels available.
According to reports, dozens of flights have been delayed and a few have been canceled.
The most recent IT failure at British Airways came to light when departing customers from the United States complained of widespread delays and a lack of information from BA personnel on the ground.
Some customers reported being delayed for hours.
“It’s all fun and games at JFK,” tweeted one user. All British Airways aircraft have been grounded owing to a mistake in their flight mapping system, and multiple alarms are presently sounding in the departures area.
Another added, “The captain of our British Airways flight just informed us that their flight computers have been down worldwide for the past two hours and no BA aircraft can file a flight plan. “This seems less than ideal.”
Another passenger grumbled about the ambiguity of the situation: “It’s midnight and we can’t check into a hotel since British Airways hasn’t officially canceled our flight. We don’t know when the flight will go, and a plane full of passengers who arrived from Cayman after the collapse began will spend the night on board!”
According to British Airways, the technical issue did not disrupt any departing flights or short-haul services. Also stated was that the malfunction was not a safety concern.
The airline announced at 8:15 a.m. that services were returning to normal.
“Our teams have rectified a temporary issue that impacted some of our long-haul flight planning systems last night, resulting in scheduling delays.
We apologize for the inconvenience to our customer’s travel arrangements.
BA’s IT systems have experienced several high-profile breakdowns in recent years, which have harmed the airline’s reputation and its recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic.
The most recent one occurred in March and caused delays at Heathrow airport in London.
A month ago, hundreds of flights were delayed or canceled as a result of an IT malfunction and staff shortages.
