British Airways’ chief executive is “profusely” sorry for an IT meltdown he revealed has disrupted 75,000 passengers’ flights.
Alex Cruz told Sky News the airline was “making some progress” towards getting their services back to normal following the computer outage, which he described as “a tragedy”.
The company is operating more than 95% of its flights on Monday, with all of its Gatwick services and long-haul flights from Heathrow going ahead, the airline boss said.
More than 90% of BA short-haul flights from Heathrow would also be operating.
Responding to the chaos that grounded scores of planes over the weekend, Mr Cruz said: “We do apologise profusely for the hardship that these customers of ours have had to go through.
“We know that there have been holidays interrupted and personal events that have been interrupted and people waiting in queues for a really long time.
“We absolutely profusely apologise for that and we are absolutely committed to provide and abide by the compensation rules that are currently in place.”
Experts predict BA is facing a huge compensation bill, estimated at more than £100m, over the disruption.
Customers have been left queuing for hours in packed terminals over the last few days and some had to bed down on terminal floors on Saturday.
Many complained of scant information from staff.
More than two-thirds of passengers affected on Saturday and Sunday would make it to their final destination by the end of Monday, Mr Cruz said.
Other passengers whose flights were disrupted over the weekend will have the option to re-book their flights for any time over the next six months.
Mr Cruz said there was “no evidence whatsoever” a cyberattack was behind the computer problems.
He instead cited a “power surge” around 9.30am on Saturday morning for the “catastrophic effect” on all of BA’s systems.
Mr Cruz promised an “exhaustive investigation” into the meltdown, adding: “We’re absolutely committed to finding the root causes of this particular event and we will make sure nothing like this happens to British Airways ever again.”
The airline boss denied claims from the GMB union the problems were down to BA cutting “hundreds of dedicated and loyal” IT staff and contracting the work out to India to save money.
Mr Cruz insisted those parties involved in the weekend’s problems had “not been involved with any type of outsourcing in any foreign countries”.
He added: “They’ve all been local issues around a local data centre who have been managed and fixed by local resources.”
The IT troubles had led to no compromise of any passenger data or any concerns about access to the terror watchlist for flights, Mr Cruz said.
More to follow…
