LONDON: British Airways on Saturday cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick airports in London as a global IT failure caused severe disruption for travellers.
As terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick became increasingly congested, the airline announced it was cancelling all flights from the airports until 6pm local time Saturday (1700 GMT, midnight Thailand time). It urged passengers not to go to the airports.
BA has not said what is causing the computer problem, but says it is working to resolve it as quickly as possible
The airline said it had found "no evidence that it's a cyberattack", The airline said it had found "no evidence that it's a cyberattack", offering assurances to a country still recovering from a ransomware attack that crippled key infrastructure including hospitals earlier this month.
Passengers at Heathrow Airport reported long lines at check-in counters as well as flight delays. One posted a picture on Twitter of BA staff writing gate numbers on a whiteboard.
"We've tried all of the self-check-in machines. None were working, apart from one," said Terry Page, booked on a flight to Texas. "There was a huge queue for it and it later transpired that it didn't actually work, but you didn't discover that until you got to the front."
Passenger Phillip Norton tweeted video of an announcement from a pilot to passengers at Fiumicino airport in Rome, saying the problem affected the system that regulates what passengers and baggage go on which aircraft. He said passengers on planes that had landed at Heathrow were unable to get off because there was nowhere to park.
The problem comes on a holiday weekend, when thousands of Britons are travelling.
Passenger Roshni Burt, who was flying from Heathrow to Bahrain with her young son, said there was no news about when her flight would depart.
"When we left the check-in area there were angry people, people getting frustrated that their flights were coming up or near to departure, people getting turned away ... with BA staff basically saying, 'If you've not checked in online, you've missed your flight'," she told Sky News.
BA is the latest airline to be hit by computer problems. Last month Lufthansa and Air France suffered global system outages that prevented them from boarding passengers.