BA union blames Indians for glitch

London: British Airways GMB union has blamed the airline’s 2016 decision of outsourcing IT jobs to India as the reason behind cancelling Saturday flights from London’s two biggest airports — Heathrow and Gatwick. The union said the airline’s decision to outsource hundreds of IT jobs to India last year was behind the problems, the Guardian reported.

London, May 28: British Airways GMB union has blamed the airline’s 2016 decision of outsourcing IT jobs to India as the reason behind cancelling all Saturday flights from London’s two biggest airports — Heathrow and Gatwick.

The GMB union said the airline’s decision to outsource hundreds of IT jobs to India last year was behind the problems, the Guardian reported.

The GMB union said BA laid off hundreds of IT staff last year and outsourced the work to India and blamed cost-cutting for the travel chaos. “This could have all been avoided,” said Mick Rix, national officer for aviation at the GMB union. According to the GMB website, the union had on February 29, 2016, warned against BA outsourcing IT jobs.

British Airways cancelled all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick on Saturday due to a major IT failure causing severe disruption to its global operations that ran into Sunday.

The airline said its terminals at Heathrow and Gatwick became “extremely congested” due to the computer problems. CHAOS CONTINUES On Sunday, thousands of travellers faced further chaos as British Airways cancelled around 40 flights from Heathrow.

Around one quarter of Sunday’s flights set to depart from London’s key hub were cancelled as the airline battled to contain the “knock-on disruption” to schedules, with aircraft and crews out of position around the world.

BA said it was hoping to operate a near-normal schedule of flights from Gatwick, London’s other major airport, and the majority of its Heathrow services. More flights left Heathrow as the day wore on, but most were operating with delays. Travellers also faced holdups at Gatwick, but no flights were cancelled.

The airline suffered IT glitches recently, leading to severe delays for passengers in July and September last year.