British Airways cancels more than 140 flights ahead of the bank holiday weekend

British Airways canceled more than 140 flights on the busiest holiday travel day of the year as it struggled to resolve a computer problem that also affected some passengers’ ability to check in remotely.

A person familiar with the airline’s operations said 23 departures from Heathrow were canceled on Friday morning, leaving 46 round-trip flights cancelled. Another 20 arrivals at Heathrow were canceled as outbound flights were not operated on Thursday.

A total of 80 flights were canceled on Thursday. The airline’s website asked passengers to check their flight status before heading to the airport. “We are aware of a technical issue which we are working hard to fix,” the website said.

British Airways said it had apologized to passengers whose flights were affected and had given them the option of booking an alternative flight with BA or another carrier or seeking a refund. The airline normally operates around 850 flights per day.

The carrier, part of International Airlines Group, indicated it had focused cancellations on routes with multiple daily flights to ensure passengers had choice. A sample of 67 BA departures scheduled for Friday from Heathrow showed two cancellations and 30 expected late departures.

BA said: “While the majority of our flights continue to operate today, we have canceled some of our short-haul flights from Heathrow due to the impact of the technical issue we experienced yesterday.”

Friday’s disruption comes on top of the latest strike action by some Heathrow security staff belonging to the Unite trade union. Friday is the second day in three consecutive days of action by the employees. Heathrow stressed that the action, which it called unnecessary, had no impact on airport operations, which it described as smooth.

Like many other European airline groups, IAG is anticipating summer travel levels at or above 2019 with the pandemic reducing air travel demand. The group raised its full-year profit forecast on May 5 in response to a revival in travel demand as well as falling fuel costs.

BA gave no indication of when operations would be expected to return to normal after two days of disruption.