British Airways has apologised after a technical issue triggered a wave of flight delays across the US.
The airline said problems with its third-party flight planning supplier were behind the delays, as customers reported disruption in departing cities including Denver, New York and Miami.
Passengers reported delays of up to seven hours on Twitter with some complaining of a lack of communication from the airline.
@British_Airways kept us in denver sitting around for over 7 hours, pretending they’d figure the situation out, and ultimately boarded us and deplaned us. Little to no answers about anything or what to do. Worst airline I’ve ever used. Scumbags doing this around Christmas time.
— Greem (@dankular3) December 20, 2022
Others complained of a lack of compensation for the delays.
The airline said later the issue had been resolved.
In a statement, British Airways said: “Our teams have now resolved a temporary issue that affected some of our long-haul flight planning systems overnight, which resulted in delays to our schedule. We’re sorry for the disruption caused to our customers’ travel plans.”
The issue did not affect flights that had already departed and was not a safety issue. Short-haul flights were unaffected.
In an earlier statement, the airline said: “Our flights due to depart the USA tonight are currently delayed due to a technical issue with our third-party flight planning supplier, which we are urgently investigating.
“We’re sorry for any disruption this will cause to our customers’ plans, our aim is for these flights to depart as quickly as possible.”