Trade union insists IT outsourcing to India to blame for UK airline chaos

LONDON : GMB, one of Britain’s largest trade unions, on Thursday insisted that outsourcing IT work to India was to blame for the recent computer failure at British Airways (BA), which resulted in large-scale cancellation of flights.

According to GMB, the computer failure could have been avoided and it was an example of alleged shortcomings of BA’s IT systems, since several staff were made redundant and work was outsourced in 2016.

However, BA told Hindustan Times that the problem arose due to a “power surge” and had no link to outsourcing of IT work.

A BA spokesperson said: “It was not an IT failure and had nothing to do with outsourcing of IT, it was an electrical power supply which was interrupted. We are undertaking an exhaustive investigation to find out the exact circumstances and most importantly ensure that this can never happen again.”

GMB national officer for aviation Mick Rix said: “We can only feel genuinely sorry for the tens of thousands of passengers who are stranded at airports and face having their travel plans and holidays ruined.

“This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India. BA have made substantial profits in for a number of years, and many viewed the company’s actions as just plain greedy.” HTC