British Airways systems outage forces cancellation of at least 50 flights

A systems outage has forced British Airways to cancel at least 50 flight, affecting thousands of passengers.

The IT collapse crippled operations systems at the airline, causing huge delays to departures and to inbound flights.

It is the latest in a series of systems failures in recent years.

Dozens of domestic and short-haul flights have been axed, ahead of what is already expected to be Heathrow’s busiest travel day at the start of a bank holiday weekend and half-term getaway.

“Our teams are working hard to resolve a technical issue that we’ve experienced this afternoon,” the airline said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience.”

Long queues have begun to form at Heathrow as passengers seek alternative flights.

Vienna, Dublin, Dusseldorf, Edinburgh, Venice, Rome, Hamburg, Aberdeen and Milan are among the affected destinations from Heathrow.

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