British Airways delays continue as flights slowly start to resume
British Airways passengers faced further delays today after a global IT crash caused chaos on Saturday.
The airline said it planned to operate a "near normal schedule" at Gatwick and the "majority of services" from Heathrow.
Chief executive Alex Cruz said BA plans to fly all long haul services from Heathrow but there will be delays and some short haul flights will be cancelled.
He added that passengers are not being admitted to the airport's terminal 5 until 90 minutes before their flight is scheduled to leave.
Air industry experts have warned it could take days for services to fully return to normal and clear the backlog.
Some passengers complained they had been left in the dark by the airline.
Tom and Brid O'Kelly, who were trying to fly home to Dublin, said they had struggled to find staff to advise them where to go.
"We were tossed on the wrong queue and then eventually we found that, well, actually going up to a desk and asking 'what is going on?'"
On Saturday, stranded passenger Eddy Leviten told ITV News said: "There was nobody in Terminal Three to give you any information at all. There were no announcements on the tannoy.
"I found out everything via Twitter - it's a catastrophic failure of systems."
Many passengers bedded down in the airport overnight as they waited to go away on holiday.
BA apologised for the "huge disruption" and said its engineers were attempting to restore services.
But air industry consultant John Strickland warned of a potential "massive knock-on effect" of the IT crash.
"Customers, and from the airline's point of view - manpower, dealing with the backlog of aircraft out of position, parking spaces for the aircraft - it's a challenge and a choreographic nightmare," he said.
BA advised passengers travelling across the Bank Holiday weekend to continue checking the status of their flights on the BA website which is now back up and running.
The IT crash meant all of BA's check-in and operational systems were affected by the issue, including the airline's customer service phone lines and re-booking function.
The incident had a knock-on effect on BA's operations around the world.
Customers who saw their flights cancelled are being refunded or re-booked onto new services "as quickly as possible", the airline said.
More flexible booking policies are also being put in place for those who no longer want to fly to or from the airports on Sunday and Monday.
Earlier, the airline said most long-haul flights due to land in London on Sunday were expected to arrive as normal.