BA’s Heathrow Flights Returning To Normal

Flights at London’s Heathrow Airport were returning to normal, but with some delays, on Thursday morning after a double whammy of incidents caused delays and cancellations on Wednesday.

The first problem happened just after lunchtime Wednesday when a fire alarm forced the evacuation of the airport’s control tower. Some flights were unable to land during the incident, with a small number diverted to Gatwick and Stansted airports.

Heathrow apologised to passengers, saying the alarm “impacted the operation of the airfield for a short while. Emergency services responded using our regular safety procedures, and our operations have resumed.”

The second event, on Wednesday evening, was blamed on a problem with a British Airways computer system.

The airline blamed a contractor for the computer outage, tweeting that “As with a number of airlines we are experiencing some disruption at Heathrow as a result of an issue with a supplier IT system.”

The outage caused delays and cancellations, with BA’s Terminal 5 particularly badly affected. Passengers on late evening flights were told to check with the airline before leaving for the airport.

People flying out on Thursday were advised that flights would be even busier than normal and to allow plenty of time for check-in and to arrive early at the airport.

Wednesday’s outage comes a year after British Airways suffered a major IT systems failure in May last year. That outage caused widespread travel disruption over a holiday weekend, with tens of thousands of people affected.