BA fined £6,500 over airport safety failures

THE UK’s biggest airline exposed employees to injury risks at a Scottish airport through a series of health and safety failings, a court heard.

British Airways (BA) left employees at risk of ‘hand arm vibrations’ (HAV) while they used tools as they fixed planes in the firm’s workshop at Glasgow Airport.

BA failed to carry out risk assessments on drills, impact hammers and sanders being used to carry out repairs.

HAV can cause tingling, pins and needles, numbness and pain in the affected persons’ hands.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed BA failed to make suitable and sufficient risk assessments.

The firm should have checked the exposure by workers to the vibrations from hand-held tools – which potentially expose the work force to the risk of injury while working in the workshops.

A criminal investigation was launched and called against the company at Paisley Sheriff Court last week.

The firm pleaded guilty to the single charge against them - that it ‘did fail to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks’ its employees were exposed to when they used hand tools while they ‘carried out maintenance and repairs on composite components of aircraft’.

BA admitted it acted ‘without sufficient consideration being given to the risk of exposure [to its employees] to levels of vibration emitted by the said tools’. The airline admitted it failed to carry out the legally-required protocols between July 2005 and August 2012, at the British Airways Limited premises at Glasgow Airport.

BA – which was referred to as British Airways Limited on court documents, based at an address in Waterside, Harmondsworth, West Drayton, London – was fined £6,500 for the offence.

Yesterday, a spokesman for BA said: ‘We take our responsibility to our colleagues very seriously.

‘As soon as the issue was identified, we took immediate action to limit the time they use these tools to reduce the risk of injury, and reported our concerns to the authorities.

‘The safety of our colleagues is always our top priority.’