British Airways is reportedly experiencing a “global outage” to its IT systems this evening (November 18), with planes grounded and pilots left “in the dark”.
The news was reported shortly before 6.30pm by Ben Clatworthy, Travel and Transport Correspondent for The Times, who posted on X (formerly Twitter): “BREAKING: Understand that British Airways IT systems have failed with planes unable to take off, phone lines down and pilots in the dark. Source says queues building at Heathrow Terminal 5.”
He then followed this up a short time afterwards, posting: “British Airways IT systems failure been confirmed by several sources, both airline and passengers stuck on the ground. One pax says their pilot “had an email saying it’s a global outage and they can’t get the weight information” for the aircraft.”
British Airways passengers were quick to confirm the news, with one commenting: “Correct. BA 535 stuck on tarmac at Naples. Pilot hasn’t received load sheet and unable to communicate with Heathrow as internal phones are down.”
Another added: “At MAN airport, minutes before boarding to LHR, they’ve announced the issue. Let’s hope for the best.”, and a third wrote: “Just been told on our flight in Poland, too.”
One X user even posted: “British Airways have lost all communications to aircraft around Europe due to an IT outage, flights will be managed by Heathrow air traffic control to get inbound flights back to base.”
British Airways has been contacted for comment on the incident, reports the Express.