British Airways ‘flights grounded’: IT glitch inflicting chaos for ‘1000’s of passengers’

Dozens of BA flights have been grounded after an IT glitch hit software delaying planes and holding up thousands of passengers.

The issue meant that pilots were unable to file flight plans electronically and had to manually call into the operations centre at Heathrow.

The issue is thought to have started at around 5pm on Monday but before then users had also reported issues logging into the BA website.

One frustrated pilot on a packed BA jet at Valencia which was running more than an hour behind schedule said:’ Apologies for this delay folks, there is a company wide IT failure and it means we have to call in our flight plans.

Dozens of BA flights have been grounded after an IT glitch hit software delaying planes and holding up thousands of passengers

A screenshot of what the British Airways website is currently displaying as thousands of passengers have been impacted by a company-wide IT glitch

‘We are trying to speed things up but I don’t know how long it will take.’

On social media passengers also reported being stuck on the tarmac at Naples, Düsseldorf and Tenerife to make but a few locations.

The IT issue meant pilots were also unable to file ‘load sheets’ which are critical to aircraft safety. 

This calculates the weight and distribution of passengers, cargo and fuel and is used to calculate performance and efficiency. 

In July last year airlines and travel were hit by chaos after a worldwide IT outage but this latest one appeared to be only affecting British Airways. 

It is unclear whether it was a cyber attack or simply a computer malfunction and technicians were trying frantically to reboot computer systems at BA’s Heathrow HQ. 

On X flight tracking app Flight Emergency said: ‘British Airways have lost all Communications to aircraft around Europe due to an IT outage, flights will be managed by Heathrow air traffic control to get inbound flights back to base.’