BA chief sorry for computer fiasco
The chief of British Airways has apologised “profusely” for the hardship caused to customers after a computer crash caused days of flight chaos and insisted it would never happen again.
Alex Cruz offered assurances that no customer data or any list, including terror watch lists, had been compromised.
THE CHIEF of British Airways has apologised “profusely” for the hardship caused to customers and insisted a similar incident would never happen again.
Alex Cruz offered assurances that no customer data or any list, including terror watch lists, had been compromised by the global IT crash.
He added that the airline was “committed” to following all compensation rules after the incident which grounded scores of planes and left thousands of passengers stranded over the weekend.
Experts predict the knock-on effect could continue for several days and BA is facing huge compensation costs, with reports suggesting the bill could top £100m.
Last night passengers were being warned to check the status of flights before travelling despite signs the situation was easing.
Travellers were facing only a handful of cancellations at Heathrow on the third day of disruption since the IT glitch.
The atmosphere inside Terminal Five appeared to be getting back to normal, with much of the backlog of stranded passengers caused by Saturday’s outage seeming to have eased.
Display boards showed some flights cancelled, including planes to Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Other cancellations were domestic flights to Glasgow, Aberdeen, Manchester, LeedsBradford and Dublin.
While a number of weary-looking passengers filled the benches by departures, for the majority check-in seemed to be going smoothly.
Extra staff wearing purple were dotted around the terminal to assist passengers.
A leading union has said that the saga could have been avoided had warnings about the consequences of outsourcing IT work been listened to last year.
Mick Rix, the GMB’s national officer for aviation, said: “GMB wrote to Theresa May on multiple occasions last year to warn of the security risks of British Airways outsourcing vital IT functions.
“She did not reply and instead chose to ignore the warnings from our members.
“This happened on her watch, and she now has serious questions to answer about why she failed to listen – and failed to act.
“Hundreds of IT jobs have been lost at BA already and hundreds more are set to go. This IT collapse and the failure to sort it out is a tragedy, but a tragedy that our members saw coming long ago.
“It stretches all credibility to suggest that the scale and duration of this meltdown is unrelated to the ongoing redundancies and cost-cutting outsourcing exercises.
“They’ve put the airline on its knees and left it unable to run even basic computer systems properly for days.”
On Saturday night travellers spent the night sleeping on yoga mats spread on terminal floors after BA cancelled all flights leaving the London hubs, while disruption continued into Sunday with dozens more services from Heathrow axed.
The IT outage had a knockon effect on BA services around the world, while passengers who did get moving on the limited number of flights to take off from the UK reported arriving at their destinations without their luggage.
The disruption also hit transport systems on the ground, with hundreds of travellers flooding London’s King’s Cross station in hope of boarding a train north instead.
This IT collapse and the failure to sort it out is a tragedy. Mick Rix, GMB’s national officer for aviation.