British Airways has been forced to cancel all its flights from Heathrow and Gatwick following a computer failure of epic proportion.
Every scheduled departure on Saturday until at least 6pm has been cancelled and the airline pleads with customers to stay away from the airports as they will just add to the chaos.
This is the sixth and most calamitous computer crash this year which hit systems at around 11:00am this morning.
The computer malfunction also knocked out the company’s website until midday with suspicions of a cyber attack denied by BA management.
At 13:00 a BA spokesman said, "We have experienced a major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide. The terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick have become extremely congested and we have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6pm UK time today, so please do not come to the airports."
BA’s ‘global system outage’ had led to queues and piles of luggage at Heathrow and Gatwick, wirh a spokesman apologising to customers, "We are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible."
BA planes around the globe have been grounded with passengers stuck in terminal buildings or sat on aeroplanes as a shortage of available gates has meant that incoming passengers have not been able to disembark.
This is a long weekend in the UK creating a passenger surge as customers booked flight to escape to the sun before half-term school holidays next week.
Postings on social media have accurately been reflecting the feelings of irate customers.
