Some had begun queuing as early as 4am, forcing the airline to bring in extra staff to cope. However, by 8am around 36 flights - all short haul - had been scrapped leaving passengers stranded.

A number of disgruntled travellers who had missed their flights blamed a lack of desks open to cope with large numbers as well as misinformation.

However, the chaos - which could be described as one of the worst launches in history - has not had a knock-on effect at Northern Ireland's two airports.

A spokesman from George Best Belfast City Airport said flights were continuing to arrive and depart as normal.

"We don't have any delays," he explained. "We don't actually have any flights coming in or out from Terminal 5 so there has not been a knock-on effect."

The news was the same from Belfast International Airport which runs an Aer Lingus flight from Heathrow.

A spokeswoman said as far as she was aware this morning, there had not been any knock-on effect from Heathrow and that flights were also continuing to arrive and depart as normal.

But the scenes at the UK's largest airport this morning were dramatically different.

BA had held meetings through the night to try to ease the problems, but were left with more teething problems at its newest terminal.