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BA says most flights running

British Airways said many of its IT systems were back up and running Sunday, but some travellers will likely face cancellations and delays for a third straight day after a global computer failure grounded hundreds of flights.

BA chief executive Alex Cruz said Sunday the airline was running a "near-full operation" at London's Gatwick Airport and planned to operate all scheduled long-haul services from Heathrow. But he said there would still be delays, as well as some cancelled short-haul flights.

The airline said it will run a full schedule at Gatwick on Monday and intends to run its full long-haul flight schedule and a "high proportion" of its shorter flights at Heathrow.

BA cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick Saturday after the IT outage, which it blamed on a power-supply problem. The glitch threw the plans of thousands of travellers into disarray, on what is a holiday weekend in Britain.

BA operates hundreds of flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on a typical day — and both are major hubs for worldwide travel.

Cruz apologized in a video statement, saying: "I know this has been a horrible time for customers."

Passengers faced hours-long lines to check in, reclaim lost luggage or rebook flights at Terminal 5, BA's hub at Heathrow. Cruz said that to reduce overcrowding travellers will only be let into the terminal 90 minutes before their flights.

Passengers — some of whom had spent the night at the airport — faced frustrating waits to learn if and when they could fly out.

"Everyone is upset. There's people in tears," said Melanie Ware, who flew in from Los Angeles and was trying to get to Venice on her honeymoon.

"We rebooked for Venice for tonight, which they also have cancelled now," she told Sky News. "So we have no way of getting out of Heathrow and they haven't compensated us for anything, and we're stuck and this is the worst honeymoon ever.

"British Airways has ruined our honeymoon."

Tonda Sallee, who was trying to fly to Frankfurt, said she has been in line for five hours, "and we have no idea how long we'll be in line. The rest of the day I'm sure, and we probably won't fly out today either."



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