The airline faced problems related to online check-ins. British Airways attributed this to an IT glitch but, even after rectification, problems remained. There were exorbitant delays in many flights and the airline had no option but to cancel several of them from the major airports of Heathrow and Gatwick in London.

The number of flights canceled were 117 from the former and 10 from the latter. It affected more than 15,000 passengers and they had to change their Travel plans at the last moment. The number of flights delayed was in hundreds and the extent of the delay was in hours.

Incidents of this nature come as a dampener to passengers who might be proceeding on a vacation or be traveling to attend some business or are moving out on urgent domestic work.

Sky News reports that the authorities explain the chaotic situation as a “knock-on effect of the disruption.” Thanks to social media, the whole world came to know about the chaos via images that showed passengers stranded at the two major airports of London.

Action was taken by British Airways

British Airways has apologized to its customers whose travel plans were affected by the disruption in its services.

The airline has assured that normalcy will return soon and advised customers to check its website to get the latest information before arriving at the airport. In order to ease the tension, BA offered rebooking option for an alternate day in case of short-haul flights. The airline knows that this chaotic situation could add up to a huge compensation bill as per the existing rules of the European Union.

Sky News adds that holidaymakers who arrived at Terminal 5 at Heathrow had to go back to their home. One traveler who wanted to holiday in Naples was disappointed because the flight stood canceled.

Some others had to spend extra money to book seats on other airlines. While many passengers had plenty to complain about, others appreciated the staff for "managing the chaos."

Delays and cancellations are not new

According to USA Today, there was chaos at Heathrow, Gatwick and London City airports because of computer problems in its check-in systems. The result was reliance on backup and manual systems. It led to large-scale cancellation of flights inconveniencing its customers. Thousands of passengers were stranded at the airports.

British Airways faced similar situations in the past. In May 2017, it was a global computer failure that led to the grounding of hundreds of BA flights over three days.

Earlier to that, in July and September 2016, the airline faced delays due to problems with its online check-in systems.

Incidentally, there was a cyberattack on its security systems last year. The attackers stole the personal data of up to 500,000 customers and BA could face fines of up to $222 million by Britain's data regulator.