Thousands of passengers have been hit by another British Airways operations glitch at London Heathrow with bags not being delivered and many flights stuck on the tarmac waiting to disembark.

The airline told those waiting to collect luggage on Saturday evening that no more bags will be delivered for the rest of the day.

Hundreds of passengers were left waiting in the baggage hall at the airport’s Terminal for hours before behing told to go home without their luggage.

At least 25 flights were affected, with many more also hit by delays caused by an apparent shortage of ground crew.

It comes after the airline was crippled by a string of IT systems failures that caused widespread cancellations and travel misery.

The airline said in a statement: “We’ve apologised to customers whose bags have been delayed due to operational constraints. We know how frustrating this is and our teams are working incredibly hard to return luggage as soon as possible.”

Lo Partridge-Smith, who arrived from Jersey, spent more than two hours awaiting bags before being told to go home.

“Took off late, landed late, waited on the tarmac for ages as no gate, pilot was baffled and apologetic, finally got gate then no one to operate jetway so waited again,” she tweeted.

Paolo Berard, who landed from Innsbruck, said the airline made an announcement saying no bags would be delivered.

Last month, BA passengers criticised the “absolute chaos” after all short-haul flights were cancelled due to a major IT outage. The glitch left many other flights stuck on the tarmac for hours awaiting paperwork.

The airline emailed customers on 4 March to apologise. “At British Airways we’ve had an incredibly difficult couple of weeks,” Tom Stevens, director of brand and customer experience wrote.

“Change has started at British Airways, but sadly the big fixes don’t happen overnight. As you were caught up in the recent disruption and you’ve struggled to speak to us, we know it might not feel as though things are happening, but you’ll have to trust us when we tell you they are.”

It was not immediately clear if the airline would be sending the email again.

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