BA might have to pay £100mn compensation

LONDON: British Airways could face a bill of at least £100m in compensation, additional customer care and lost business resulting from an IT meltdown that affected more than 1,000 flights over the weekend.

All the airline’s flights from Heathrow and Gatwick were grounded on Saturday . Services resumed on Sunday but cancellations and delays persisted with about 200 BA flights in and out of Heathrow cancelled on Sunday, according to Guardian calculations. There were no cancellations at Gatwick but some passengers experienced delays.

The glitch is believed to have been caused by a power supply issue and there is no evidence of a cyber-attack, the airline said.

In a video posted on YouTube, Alex Cruz, chief executive of BA, said that all the IT systems were not yet restored. “Many of our IT systems are back up today. All my British Airways colleagues on the ground and in the air are pulling out all the stops to get our operation back up to normal as quickly as we possibly can, we’re not there yet.”

“On behalf of everyone at BA I want to apologise for the fact you’ve had to go through these very trying experiences.”

PAK AIRLINES IT GLITCH HITS OPERATIONS

The flight operation of Pakistan International Airlines’ was badly affected on Monday due to unspecified problem with the information technology system. The problem surfaced at around 9am, virtually bringing the national flag carrier to halt.