The airline advised passengers against coming to the airports as it would not be able to help them.
@PA Full statement: BA urges people not to come to Heathrow or Gatwick airports as it cancels all flights there before 6pm pic.twitter.com/1XpC4Er0Oq
— Stephen Jones (@SteveJonesPA) May 27, 2017
British Airways refuted media claims that the outage had been caused by a cyber attack, saying that there was no evidence to support that.
Earlier, the company posted a tweet recognizing the problem.
We apologise for the current IT systems outage. We are working to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.
— British Airways (@British_Airways) May 27, 2017
The official Twitter account of Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport in Europe, reported that there was an issue.
We're working with @British_Airways following an issue with their IT system this morning that has caused some delays for passengers. 1/2
— Heathrow Airport (@HeathrowAirport) May 27, 2017
Passengers who had already arrived at the airports were less than pleased with the chaos that had erupted there.
Heathrow Airport right now. Thanks to #BritishAirways systems crashing. All flights delayed so make sure to give yourself plenty of time pic.twitter.com/s5qvyY5p7Y
— Philip Napiorkowski (@ukphillad) May 27, 2017
All BA flights CANCELLED at Heathrow & Gatwick https://t.co/v3paxGmsQh #avgeek #FLIGHT #cancelled #Heathrow #Gatwick #chaos #britishairways pic.twitter.com/bNrmLcg7OQ
— gomila (@GomilaL) May 27, 2017
Social media posts from Heathrow show long queues to the British Airways check-in desks.
Flying with @British_Airways from @HeathrowAirport? Don't bother #britishairways pic.twitter.com/2czOBpaL43
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) May 27, 2017
Terminal 5 in #Heathrow-huge lines from system outage pic.twitter.com/OaVDIq4uwU
— Lesley Mancuso (@lesallyn) May 27, 2017
Unable to load the luggage on the planes, the company left the bags temporarily near its counters.
Absolute chaos at #Heathrow @British_Airways systems are down, people freaked out bags are piled up! What a #travel #nightmare pic.twitter.com/9mFVc6dd27
— Anna Anisin (@AnnaOnTheWeb) May 27, 2017
British Airways is the latest airline to be facing grave IT issues. Last month, Germany's Lufthansa and Air France suffered a global system outage which prevented them from boarding passengers at the time.
