Unite trade union notifies BA of possible strike action
IT outage was caused by contractor who switched off power
The Unite trade union has notified British Airways that cabin crew members working for the carrier’s mixed fleet are ready to hold four more days of strikes, starting on June 16, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
The strike is yet to be confirmed, however, as union representatives are “considering some new information,” the spokeswoman said, adding that the union was now legally required to give two weeks’ notice before action takes place.
Cabin crew members in the mixed fleet are in a long-running dispute over pay, and have been on strike several times already in 2017. The dispute predates last weekend’s IT systems failure at British Airways which stranded 75,000 customers, and is not connected.
British Airways has previously said that it has been able to fly all customers to their destinations during strike action by members of the mixed fleet crew.
Also on Friday, the Times newspaper reported that a contractor doing maintenance work at a British Airways data center inadvertently switched off the power supply, knocking out the airline’s computer systems and leaving 75,000 people stranded last weekend.
Quoting a BA source, the newspaper said the power supply unit that sparked the IT failure was working perfectly but was accidentally shut down by a worker. An investigation into the power outage is likely to focus on human error rather than any equipment failure, it said.
BA had to cancel all flights from London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports last Saturday. It blamed a power surge that knocked out its computer system, disrupting flight operations, call centers and its website.