A “major IT systems failure” has caused British Airways to cancel all flights from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports, which means that tens of thousands of people will have to rethink their travel plans on this busy holiday weekend. The root cause was actually nothing dramatic like being hacked, but rather a power-supply issue that affected ” check-in and operational systems.” Thanks to Kyle for this one.



BA operates hundreds of flights from the two London airports on a typical day — and both are major hubs for worldwide travel. Several hours after problems began cropping up Saturday morning, BA suspended flights up to 6 p.m. because the two airports had become severely congested. The airline later scrapped flights from Heathrow and Gatwick for the rest of the day. The airline said it was working to restore services out of Heathrow and Gatwick beginning Sunday, although some disruptions are expected. It said it expected that London-bound long-haul flights would land on schedule Sunday.

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Source: [H]ardOCP – British Airways Computer Outage Causing Global Delays, Cancels All London Flights