British Airways hit by delays and disruption due to 'technical issue'

British Airways has been hit with a technical failure that appeared to be causing major delays and disruption to its flights across Europe.

As reports emerged on social media of flight delays and issues with the flag carrier's website on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), a British Airways spokesperson said the airline was working to fix a "technical issue."

"Our flights are currently operating, but are experiencing delays as our teams work to resolve a technical issue affecting some of our systems," a British Airways spokesperson said in a statement.

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On X, as irate customers asked about the status of delayed flights and its website, the airline told a user that it did not have "a timeframe on when this will be resolved."

Heathrow Airport, which is the airline's main base in London, said it was working with British Airways to provide updates to passengers.

"We are aware of a technical issue that British Airways are investigating. And we will be working with them to provide updates to passengers as soon as they are available. Heathrow systems are operating as normal," a Heathrow Airport spokesperson said.

All other airlines are operating as normal at Heathrow, the spokesperson added.

At London Gatwick Airport, British Airways "had a short-term issue" but no disruption was caused, a spokesperson said.

The airline's website appeared to be down in the UK and showed the error message: "We are experiencing high demand on ba.com at the moment. Thank you for your patience."

Customers in Australia could access its site.

The airline, which is owned by International Airlines Group, has previously experienced technical issues that resulted in flight delays and cancellations.

In 2019, British Airways cancelled more than 100 flights after the airline's computer systems crashed.

The 2019 cancellations hit thousands of travellers using London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports after check-in and flight start systems suffered a partial crash.

Another 300 flights faced delays of up to an hour, according to the airline's website at the time.