British Airways hoping to operate 'near-normal' schedule amid backlog

British Airways says it is "aiming to operate a near-normal schedule" after an IT failure hit thousands of passengers.

All flights were cancelled from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports on Saturday (Shenzhen: 002291.SZ - news) due to what was described as a "global systems outage" blamed on a power supply issue.

Thousands of passengers were left stranded and terminals at both airports were "extremely congested", with travellers urged to stay away.

All of BA's check-in and operational systems were affected, including customer services phone lines and the facility used for re-booking flights.

The problems also created a knock-on effect on BA's operations around the world.

:: Passengers describe airport pandemonium

A BA spokesman said: "We are continuing to work hard to restore all of our IT systems and are aiming to operating a near normal schedule at Gatwick and the majority of services from Heathrow on Sunday.

"We are extremely sorry for the huge disruption caused to customers throughout Saturday and understand how frustrating their experiences will have been.

"We would advise customers travelling across the bank holiday weekend to continue checking the status of their flight on our website, www.ba.com, before coming to the airport."

It is possible the disruption may last several days, however, as planes and aircrew are returned to their positions and the backlog of passengers is cleared.

Air industry consultant John Strickland said: "There's a massive knock-on effect.

"Customers and - from the airline's point of view - manpower, dealing with the backlog of aircraft out of position, parking spaces for the aircraft... It's a challenge and a choreographic nightmare."

Malcolm Ginsberg, editor in chief at Business Travel News, said: "This is a very, very serious situation, one that will not be solved overnight, even once they get the technology aspects of it done - it's going to be three or four days.

"There's only full aircraft at this time of year and there will be aircraft in the wrong positions."

Customers who had their flights cancelled are being refunded or re-booked "as quickly as possible" and more flexible booking policies are being put in place for those who no longer want to fly to or from the airport on Sunday and Monday.

The airline has said there is no evidence of a cyberattack being behind the power problem.