Airline passengers in London suffered a morning of chaos Tuesday after a computer fault froze check-in systems at British Airways and the United Kingdom capital’s City airport was closed when protesters blocked the runway.
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British Airways is continuing to check people in at its London Heathrow hub, as well as at Gatwick, south of the city, though the process is taking longer than usual, spokeswoman Liza Ravenscroft said by e-mail. “We’re sorry for the delays our customers are facing as they check-in for flights”.
IT problems have blighted British Airways’ check-in systems, causing major delays and forcing the airline to revert back to manual methods.
BA has confirmed the outage, admitting the systems glitch affected “a number of airports” worldwide.
BA owner IAG which also owns Aer Lingus apologised to customers for the delays and urged passengers to check in online before they reached the airport.
The company’s official Twitter account responded to complaints from travelers at airports including Atlanta, Chicago and Boston. Thousands of passengers had to wait for hours in several airports.
British Airways said the computer issue had been resolved at London airports around 8am Tuesday local time, but warned delays would continue through the day.
The DAA has advised passengers to check latest flight information with their airline before travelling to Dublin Airport.
Passengers were said to be boarding flights with boarding card written out by hand.
“At this time we are experiencing problems with the computer systems”.
It added: “Our colleagues are doing everything possible to check in customers for their journey”.
He told the Press Association: “All the systems literally just had a meltdown, basically”.
Separately, London City Airport was closed on Tuesday morning after Black Lives Matter protesters blocked the runway.
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An unexplained computer outage has resulted in widespread delays for British Airways flights.
