BA cancels all Saturday flights from London: spokesman

LONDON – 28 May 2017: British Airways said it had cancelled all flights out of major London airports Heathrow and Gatwick for the rest of Saturday after an IT systems failure.

The airline had earlier said all flights from the two airports had been cancelled up to 6.00 pm (1700 GMT), but a spokesman later told AFP that all flights for Saturday had been grounded.

"We have experienced a major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide," BA said in a statement.

"The terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick have become extremely congested and we have cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick before 6.00 pm UK time today (1700 GMT), so please do not come to the airports.

The airline said it had found "no evidence that it's a cyber attack," with Britain still recovering from a ransomware attack earlier this month that crippled key infrastructure.

"We are working hard to get our customers who were due to fly today onto the next available flights over the course of the rest of the weekend," BA said, adding that its call centers and website were also affected.

The outage comes on a busy holiday weekend in Britain, where Monday is a public holiday and many schoolchildren are beginning their half-term break.

BA warned people not to come to the "extremely congested" airports, but an AFP photographer at Heathrow's Terminal 5 said many travelers were waiting outside the departure area with their luggage in "chaotic" scenes.

They were not being allowed inside the terminal for health and safety reasons, prompting some of them to take taxis away from the transport hub.