Major technical snag mars British Airways' operations, 42 flights cancelled on second day

For the second consecutive day on Friday, British Airways (BA) had to ground at least 42 planes at London’s Heathrow airport after experiencing a major IT related problem on Thursday.

The airways said it is dealing with "knock-on effect of a technical issue" resulting in staff being in the wrong location. Around 16,000 passengers have been affected due to the cancelled flights.

On Thursday, the airline cancelled close to 80 short-haul flights.

Most of the cancelled planes were bound for other European nations and domestic flights. Apart from that, passengers also had to face problems while accessing other airline related services, such as cheking-in online, BBC reported.

British Airways in a statement apologised for cancelling dozens of flights at Heathrow, saying it was related to "technical problems" causing difficulties with online check-in.

"While the vast majority of our flights continue to operate today, we have cancelled some of our short-haul flights from Heathrow due to the knock-on effect of a technical issue that we experienced yesterday," BA said in a statement on Friday.

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Those affected have been offered the option to rebook an alternative flight or request a refund, the airline added.

The cancellations come at a time when the United Kingdom is experiencing one of its busiest days for air travel since 2019.

It is difficult to ascertain on how many flights were impacted due to the technical glitch, but BBC and the Independent media outlets pegged the number to anywhere between 150 and 160 flights.

A spokesperson for BA told the BBC that only a “very small number of departures” from Heathrow were actually affected.

British Airways a victim of technical snags

This is not the first time that IT problems have marred the operations of British Airways. In 2017, as many as 75,000 passengers were left stranded after the airline was hit by a major technical glitch.

The incident sparked a customer backlash with assurances from the carrier that it would do better in future.

In February as well, passengers faced delays due to an IT issue, days after flights had been cancelled due to Storm Eunice.

Meanwhile, traffic is steadily building up over the port of Dover as people embark on cross-Channel ferry trips.

Ferry operator DFDS told BBC that there was a wait of around an hour at border control for travellers in cars, while coach traffic was "free-flowing".

(With inputs from agencies)

(With inputs from agencies)