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BA resumes flights from Gatwick, Heathrow

British Airways logos are seen on tailfins at Heathrow Airport in west London
British Airways logos are seen on tailfins at Heathrow Airport in west London
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British Airways resumed some flights from Britain's two biggest airports on Sunday after a global computer system failure sowed chaos, grounding planes and leaving thousands of passengers queuing for hours.


BA said it aimed to operate a near normal schedule of flights from Gatwick airport and the majority of flights from Heathrow on Sunday.


"We are continuing to work hard to restore all of our IT systems and are aiming to operate a near normal schedule at Gatwick and the majority of services from Heathrow on Sunday," BA said in a statement.


"We are extremely sorry for the huge disruption caused to customers."


British Airways canceled all its flights from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports on Saturday after a power supply problem disrupted its flight operations worldwide and also hit its call centers and website.


Alex Cruz, the chairman and chief executive of BA, part of Europe's largest airline group IAG, said there was no evidence of any cyber attack. He said a power supply issue was to blame.


Thousands of passengers were left queuing for hours in departure halls at the airports on a particularly busy weekend. There is a public holiday on Monday and many children were starting their school half-term breaks.


Terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick became jammed with angry passengers, with confused BA staff unable to help as they had no access to their computers, according to passengers interviewed by Reuters.


"We are refunding or rebooking customers who suffered cancellations on to new services as quickly as possible," BA said, adding that it had introduced more flexible rebooking policies for passengers affected.


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