British Airways: Flights leaving US grounded over technical issue

British Airways (BA) has apologised after flights due to depart from the US were grounded for several hours.

The airline said it was urgently investigating a technical issue with its third-party flight planning supplier.

BA passengers have reported waiting for hours in airports.

A spokesman for the airline told the BBC that flights had been departing after delays and said it was sorry for the disruption to customers.

Passengers have taken to Twitter to report waiting at John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than three hours.

Others said they had been sitting on planes parked on runways for hours, before being moved back to the airport.

In a statement, British Airways said: "Our flights due to depart the USA tonight are currently delayed due to a technical issue with our third-party flight planning supplier, which we are urgently investigating.

"We're sorry for any disruption this will cause to our customers' plans, our aim is for these flights to depart as quickly as possible."

It is not the first time BA has been hit by technical problems.

In February, the airline apologised after cancelling all short-haul flights from Heathrow Airport due to IT issues