British Airways canceled dozens of flights to and from Heathrow Airport on Thursday night due to a “technical problem”, grounding thousands of passengers.
Just before 9 p.m., it was London airport The website for arrivals and departures showed that 79 services had been suspended.
This was despite the airline saying the issues had been resolved as it tried to get schedules back to normal.
In an earlier statement, she said: “While the majority of our flights continued to operate today, we have had to cancel a number of Heathrow flights due to a technical issue.
“Affected customers have been contacted and offered options, including a refund or rebooking to an alternative flight with us or another airline. We are very sorry to our customers for the inconvenience this has caused.”
It’s understandable company Attempts to rebook customers into alternative services where possible.
Sorina Anastasio – a 33-year-old headhunter who lives in London – was due to marry in her native Romania in June, but it didn’t work out.
The law there requires couples to seal their marriage 14 days before the wedding, so she was on her way home to complete the forms.
She told Sky News: “You have to complete those forms 14 days in advance, and I definitely can’t do that now. So I missed my wedding, basically. I had a bit of a meltdown earlier.”
“It’s been a really tough day. I’ve been here since 3am so it’s been five hours now. I was supposed to fly to Romania because I’m getting married and I need to get the paperwork done.
“Our appointment was tomorrow. Now, I can’t get a flight until Saturday. The worst thing is that I’ve already checked in and they ask me to check my handbag, which is inside of my prom dress.”
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She added, “Nobody can take back their checked baggage and there is no one to help. There is only one landline phone on arrival that says ‘baggage inquiries’ and that is the only way to contact the baggage crew.”
“All I have is my phone and my wallet. It’s insanely frustrating.
“It’s very poorly managed. I mean, my situation is not life or death, but there are old people here, people who barely speak English… There are people here who’ve got their medication in their bags and they can’t get to it themselves.”
“The staff say they’ll reimburse us for the hotels, but people don’t have anything on them — no clothes, nothing, so they don’t want to leave. It’s heartbreaking to see these people struggling at the airport with no one to help them.”