British Airways has blamed a “technical issue” for disruption to its flights around the world, but said it expected to operate virtually a full schedule on Thursday.
Some long-haul flights into the UK’s two busiest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, were cancelled or severely delayed overnight and the airline said there would be knock-on effects, including further delays.
About 45 flights due to land at Heathrow were delayed by more than 45 minutes by 9am. The longest delay was flight BA170 from Pittsburgh, US, which was expected to arrive more than 12 hours late. Passengers on some cancelled flights, including from Mexico and Japan, were set to arrive more than 24 hours behind schedule.
BA said it was working hard to resolve an unspecified “technical issue” affecting inbound long-haul flights and that it had rebooked customers on alternative flights with hotel accommodation for those unable to continue their journeys
A BA spokesman said later on Thursday morning: “We plan to operate a full flight schedule today.
When an airline starts cancelling or delaying flights for more than three hours, passengers are entitled to compensation of €250-€600 (£230-£550) under EU rules.
The cause of the problem has to be under the airline’s control and not an ‘extraordinary circumstance’. Lack of planes/staff, flight overbooking, a strike by airline staff or an IT failure are all considered to be within the airline’s control – so compensation is payable.
Passengers on cancelled short-haul flights – up to 1,500km – are entitled to €250 or £230. For flights of 1,500km-3,500km, passengers are entitled to €400, and €600 for the longest flights (more than 3,500km).
Compensation is also payable if the plane is delayed. The payments are the same but only kick in when the plane has been delayed three hours for short flights or four hours for the longer trips. The delay is calculated against the time the plane was due to arrive.
Passengers are also entitled to ‘assistance’ under the EU rules. Short-haul passengers should receive food and water after two hours. Mid-distance passengers get help after three hours, while long-haul passengers receive it after they have been held in the terminal for four hours. If the delay is overnight, passengers should be provided with hotel accommodation but this often does not happen. This assistance should be provided irrespective of whether the delay is the airline’s fault.
The airlines have fought these compensation rules since they were introduced and passengers have had to go to court to get their money. The airlines frequently blame delays on events outside their control. Freak weather events or a last-minute strike by air traffic controllers are deemed to be outside their control. A lack of planes or staff is not.
The rules only apply to EU-based airlines or all flights that start in the EU on non-EU based carriers. What will happen after Brexit is not yet clear. Miles Brignall
“There may be some knock-on delays to flights and we are advising customers to check ba.com for the latest flight information.
“We are sorry for the disruption to customers who have been affected.”
It is the latest in a series of systems failures to hit the airline in recent months. In August, an IT glitch led to the cancellation of more than 100 flights and disrupted the travel plans of tens of thousands of passengers.
BA’s system resilience has been the focus of particular scrutiny since a major incident in May 2017, in which all flights from its major London airports were cancelled, stranding tens of thousands of passengers. A power outage caused by an engineer overriding the electrical failsafe was blamed by executives.
