British Airways IT crash: Chaos at Heathrow after passengers face third day of disruption

Passengers of British Airways faced a third day of disruption at Heathrow after an IT glitch blamed on outsourcing to India that grounded various planes, leaving thousands of travellers stranded over the weekend.

The airline said it intended to run a full schedule at Gatwick on Sunday and to operate a full long-haul schedule and a"high proportion" of its short-haul programme at Heathrow.

BA passengers have been told to check the status of their flights before travelling to the airports where scenes of chaos unfolded over the weekend. 

The airline claimed it was making "good progress" inrecovering from the worldwide IT glitch. "We operated a full schedule at Gatwick on Sunday.

At Heathrow, we operated virtually all our scheduled long-haulflights, though the knock-on effects of Saturday's disruptionresulted in a reduced short-haul programme," Sky news quoted a BA spokeswoman said: "We apologise again to customers for the frustration andinconvenience they are experiencing and thank them for theircontinued patience."

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Thousands of passengers had their travel plans disrupted as a result of the problem, with one workers' union blaming the outsourcing of IT jobs to India for the chaos, a claim denied by the airline.

The company said there was no evidence the failure was the result of a cyber attack. Experts predict the knock-on effect could continue forseveral days and BA is facing huge compensation costs, with reports suggesting the bill could top 100 million pound. Passengers faced hours-long lines to check in, reclaimlost luggage or rebook flights at Terminal 5, BA's hub at Heathrow.

Alex Cruz, the airline's chairman and CEO, issued a video message on Twitter to reassure passengers about their lostluggage and apologise.

Alex Cruz, BA chairman and CEO, apologised to customers in a video message on Twitter and said, "I know this has been a horrible time for customers.

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Some of you have missed holidays, some of you have been stranded on aircraft, some of you have been separated from your bags. Many of you have been stuck in long queues whilst you waited for information.

"On behalf of everyone at BA I want to apologise for the fact that you had to go through these very trying experiences." BA operates hundreds of flights from Heathrow and Gatwickon a typical day and both are major hubs for worldwide travel.