British Airways flights delayed due to technical issue

LONDON — British Airways flights faced delays due to a technical issue affecting some of the airline's systems on Monday (Nov 18), which local media said had affected thousands of passengers at London's Heathrow Airport.

A spokesperson for the airline, which is owned by IAG, said the technical issue had been resolved.

"We've apologised to customers for delays to their flights and ensured they were able to reach their destinations as planned," the spokesperson said via email.

The company did not immediately respond to further questions on the number of flights delayed or the extent of the disruption.

Dozens of passengers complained about the disruption on social media earlier in the evening.

The Daily Mirror newspaper reported that pilots were unable to file flight plans electronically and had to manually call into the operations centre at Heathrow, Britain's biggest airport and Europe's busiest. It said planes were grounded across Europe due to the issue, which it said had affected thousands of passengers.

Flight Emergency, a flight-tracking account on social media platform X, said British Airways had lost communications to aircraft around Europe, leaving Heathrow air-traffic control to get inbound flights back to base.

Heathrow did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the disruption.

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