I was on 8.50am BA1387 from MAN that day. I was walking past gate 141 when the inbound was arriving at circa 7.45am. The only pre warning I had of the chaos about to unfold was I had to get a paper boarding pass! It was only at the lounge the staff mentioned to me the 0700 hadn’t left yet due to IT issues.

I probably would have gone back for the train if I’d known what my day would turn out to be! An initial 1 hour delay ended up being around 1pm departure. I did get some work done on my laptop however. They still served breakfast after takeoff! And had a cheeky champagne. We promptly landed around 2pm at LHR and we then taxied around aimlessly for an hour. We then parked up at T4 remote end.

The buses and stairs turned up at around 5.30pm. That was a long sit down! I was last on bus as rear stairs, the crew got on with us. They then dropped us off at T4 transfer area which was inside the passport control! This is the only time Thru the ordeal I said something that why are we here when I’m a domestic arrival? A supervisor asked did I wish to leave the airport and said yes. Me and 1 other guy were escorted to Passport control at T4 whereby I left by showing my driving license. Not sure why the rest of the plane queued up for T3 & T5 buses as I can’t believe they were all transit passengers! Perhaps they were or just unaware they had been dumped as a international arrival.

I was due to stay at a hotel at Heathrow but had cancelled it as imagined it would be chaos and moved to Ealing, similar price anyhow. I came back Thursday evening on my return just as the glitch that afternoon was in progress. There were general delays of 30-40 minutes. Arrived back on the 20:25 about a half hour late.