British Airways passengers have criticised the “absolute chaos” at London’s Heathrow Airport after all short-haul flights on Saturday morning were cancelled due to a major IT outage.

The issue has also caused flight delays, with passengers stuck on planes after landing at the airport and baggage piling up.

It was confirmed by the airline that the situation had been caused by a hardware issue rather than a cyber attack.

Hundreds of people have been queuing outside Heathrow’s Terminal 5 on Saturday with staff only letting passengers into the building an hour before their flight, due to the backlog inside.

News Shopper: British Airways suffered an issue with its IT (PA)British Airways suffered an issue with its IT (PA)

Dr Penny Slaney, 62, a consultant radiologist from Worcestershire, told the PA news agency the situation has been “absolute chaos” and the lack of communication from BA has been “appalling”.

What was the reaction from passengers?

Reaction was not kind from those who had had their journeys affected with such short notice.

Journalist Philip Plickert posted on his Twitter account: "Thank you @British_Airways for cancelling all your flights from Heathrow today and and thank you for not informing customers!"

One passenger was very upset, tagging British Airways in a post on Twitter.

They wrote: "hello @British_Airways! i’d like to complain that you made my girlfriend and me cry because you canceled her flight. very insanely rude of you."

Another wrote: "How many more times does it need to fail before BA fix their IT properly once & for all? All airlines have failures but rarely. Feels like constant issues with BA recently."

Brady Haran tweeted: "Fool me once, shame on you. Book a flight with @British_Airways, shame on me."