Heathrow chaos as British Airways cancels all short-haul flights

The airline mentioned: “We know we have let our customers down and we will do every little thing we can to make this up to them – but for now our emphasis is on obtaining as lots of buyers and flights absent as we can.”

Paul Charles of vacation consultancy The Computer Agency explained: “BA requirements to be clear on what is actually triggering these issues and how shortly they will be set.”

Lisa Webb, a Which? buyer regulation specialist, reported the airline really should provide buyers the solution of flying with yet another airline if required if their flight had been cancelled.

“This is not the very first time that BA has experienced specialized issues, leading to the postponement of flights and leaving travellers to fork out the price,” she stated.

“In activities this sort of as these, airways ought to be giving the solution of a refund or to reroute passengers on any acceptable route as swiftly as possible, employing other airlines where vital.”

Ms Webb reported BA will have to also give apparent info to afflicted customers about their entitlement to compensation.

Vacation journalist Simon Calder is in Qatar and had been due to fly house on Saturday night with BA.

“With but one more weekend’s flying severely broken by what BA calls ‘systems disruption’, the airline evidently has a pressing need to make investments in IT,” he reported.

“Longer term, the reputational problems is growing with every cancellation. I work out 1,500 passengers obtained up really early this early morning to fly on British Airways from Heathrow to Geneva – and the very same range ready at the Swiss airport to arrive property. As with the thousands who have dropped visits to Italy, the Canary Islands and beyond, they are unlikely to neglect this weekend in a hurry.”

In July 2018, laptop troubles strike BA operations at Heathrow and the airline cancelled a amount of short-haul flights following the incident involving a “provider IT method”.

In May possibly the former yr, 75,000 financial institution holiday break travellers were stranded right after a glitch pressured the airline to cancel a lot more than 700 flights above 3 days.