British Airways resolves IT systems issues that forced it to ground and delay hundreds of flights

British Airways has confirmed the IT systems failure that caused it to cancel hundreds of flights on 7 August 2019 is now resolved, but is warning passengers to expect knock-on travel disruption as a result.  

The airline is yet to disclose the exact nature of the problems, which are known to have affected the IT systems governing its check-in and flight departure procedures.

This in turn led to around 100 flights being cancelled, and a further 300 departures from its London Heathrow, London Gatwick and London City airport being delayed, over the course of the day.  

Computer Weekly has repeatedly pressed British Airways for further details on the exact cause of the disruption, and requested further details of what it plans to do to prevent a repeat of the problems, but no response on that front has been forthcoming.

Instead, a British Airways spokesperson provided a series of statements where the firm said its teams had worked “tirelessly” to ensure its passengers got to where they needed to be during the disruption, and that it is sorry for any inconvenience caused.

“We resolved the temporary systems issue yesterday and apologised to customers who were affected,” the statement reads.

“Any customers whose flights were cancelled have either been rebooked or offered a refund. We plan to operate our normal schedule today, however there may be some knock-on disruption.

“We continue to ask customers to check ba.com before heading to the airport to get the latest status of their flight,” the statement concludes.

Yesterday’s system issues are the latest in a long-line of IT issues to blight British Airways in recent years of varying degrees of severity and length, with the most disruptive occurring in May 2017 over a bank holiday weekend.

A datacentre power supply was established as the root cause of the issues that occurred that time, which resulted in flights being cancelled and delayed over the course of two days, with 75,000 passengers caught up in the disruption.

British Airways also suffered a data breach in September 2018, which prompted the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to hand down its biggest GDRP-related fine to-date in July of £183m. The company has since publicly declared that it intends to appeal against the penalty.