UK flight chaos on BA computer glitch, protest

Airline passengers in London suffered a morning of chaos Tuesday after a computer fault froze check-in systems at BA and the UK capital’s City airport was closed when protesters blocked the runway. An outage that affected BA passengers in the US overnight caused disruption across the carrier’s network Tuesday, with dozens of flights delayed at its London Heathrow and Gatwick hubs and staff forced to issue handwritten boarding passes in order to keep flights operating. At London City airport a group of nine activists from the Black Lives Matter campaign group chained themselves to a tripod positioned on the single landing strip, causing the terminal favored by corporate travellers to shut to traffic. BA later said its systems were back online at bases including Heathrow and Gatwick, though check-in is taking longer than usual due to the backlog of flights. Travelers can alternatively register via the BA website and print their own boarding passes, according the airline, which advised people to travel to their airport for the scheduled departure time. An investigation will be initiated to determine the cause of the computer glitch, said a spokeswoman for the unit of London-based International Consolidated Airlines Group. Flights at London City were disrupted from at least 5:40 a.m., when the authorities were alerted to the runway incursions, with local press reports suggesting they may have got to the docklands site by boat.<br/>