British Airways has promised that the IT failure that saw tens of thousands of its passengers stuck in airports over the holidays, will not occur again. The issue started on the weekend when all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick, some of the busiest airports in Europe, were canceled.
The issue has been sorted out and things were returning to normal by Monday. The company said that the main cause of this issue was a power surge that occurred on Saturday. The surge affected British Airway’s flight, baggage and communication systems. The surge was so large that even the backup systems were made useless.
As per CEO Alex Cruz:
Once the disruption is over, we will carry out an exhaustive investigation into what caused this incident, and take measures to ensure it never happens again.
However, the issue has caused definite damage to the company and its reputation. The issue was not managed very well and many customers spent hours stranded in airports. Even letting the long term damage to the company’s reputation slide, British Airways will likely have to pay in excess of 61 million euros in compensation for the 800 flights that were canceled. Add in the cost that the company will have to pay to its customers for their hotel stays and the amount will only go up.
Competitors including Ryanair are already making snide jokes at BA’s expense and the number of bookings on them have already gone up.
There are even allegations that BA brought the situation on itself due to its cost cutting practices.
As per Mick Rix, GMB National Officer for Aviation:
This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India.
British Airways however, has denied all these allegations. The stock of BA’s parent IAG was trading down by 2.8 percent on Monday, even after things had started coming back to normal.
