London Stansted Airport: Passengers describe 'chaos' and 'carnage' as people miss flights due to 'IT issue'

A post on X by London Stansted Airport at 6.20am UK time this morning, Sunday May 11, read: "Due to an ongoing IT issue, a number of airport systems have been affected, including check-in, baggage and security. The issue has now been resolved but some arrivals and departures may be subject to delays.”

In its post, the airport added: "Engineers are working hard to fully restore all systems as soon as possible." It also apologised to passengers and advised them to stay in touch with their airlines.

In an updated post at 8am, the airport said say some flights may still be subject to delays. A further post at 10.30am confirmed that flights may continue to be delayed, and thanked customers for their “patience and understanding”.

One passenger took to X to say the airport was in “chaos”. The user, who posts under the name Crypto Wright, said: “The airport is chaos , staff don't known what to do , people are sending passengers to the wrong drop off. Tensions are high as they struggle to find order. Most flights are struggling to get their bags loaded into the planes due to 2 belts being operational.”

Another X user, Gary Parkin, added that the situation was “carnage”. Another social media user caught in the incident blasted the airport and the airlines for their lack of help. They said: “People are stuck there with no information at all, they lost flights and neither the airport nor the airlines give an explanation. We understand that stuff happens but the lack of communication is the worst part.”

One passenger, who did not wish to be named told the BBC, said she had been stuck in queues at the terminal for hours and had missed her flight. She told the publication she arrived at the Essex airport at 4.45am to find passengers queuing "out the door".

"I spoke to one woman who had already been standing for an hour and we were getting nowhere near the entrance," she said. "The queue for security was out the door and around the corner."

The woman said that, after standing in the queue for more than two hours, she learned that her flight to Greece was boarding and would be taking off as scheduled without her or the rest of the passengers. She then decided to leave the airport and go home.

Another passenger who wouldn’t be getting on their flight took to X to ask the airport who they should seek compensation from, alleging that their airline had just told them to go home.

At the time of writing, at around 11am on Sunday May 11, the airport did not appear to have replied publicly to any of the passenger complaints posted on social media, and neither had any of the airlines.

The malfunction affected a number of systems at the airport, including check-in, baggage and security, London Stansted said on Sunday morning.

Around 15,000 departing passengers transit through Stansted on a usual Sunday morning, according to the airport.

“All systems have now been fully restored and no flights have been cancelled as a result of the IT issue,” the spokesperson added. “We are investigating the cause of the earlier issue so nothing confirmed at this stage but, for background, it looks like it was related to internet access for some systems.”