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British Airways vows 'never again' after costly (INDIA) IT collapse

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That's what you get for outsourcing your fucking IT, you limey 
assholes.

British Airways (BA) said it would take steps to ensure there 
was no repeat of a computer system failure that stranded 75,000 
passengers over a holiday weekend and turned into a public 
relations disaster.

BA had been forced to cancel all its flights from Heathrow, 
Europe's busiest airport, and Gatwick on Saturday after a power 
supply problem disrupted its operations worldwide and also hit 
its call centers and website.

The airline was returning to normal on Monday, planning to run 
more than 95 percent of flights from London Heathrow and 
Gatwick, with only a handful of short-haul flights canceled.

BA Chief Executive Alex Cruz said the root of the problem, which 
also affected passengers trying to fly into Britain, had been a 
power surge on Saturday morning which hit BA's flight, baggage 
and communication systems. It was so strong it also rendered the 
back-up systems ineffective, he said.

"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," Cruz said.

Over the weekend, some stranded passengers curled up under 
blankets on the floor or slumped on luggage trolleys, images 
that played prominently online and in newspapers.

"Apologizes all well and good but not enough. BA has lost 
another loyal customer #disgraceful," tweeted Tom Callway, who 
had been due to fly to Budapest.

The company was left counting the cost of the disruption, both 
in terms of a one-off impact to its profit and the longer term 
damage to its reputation.

Spanish-listed shares of parent company IAG, which also owns 
carriers Iberia, Aer Lingus and Vueling, dropped 2.8 percent on 
Monday after the outage. The London-listed shares did not trade 
because of a public holiday.

Flight compensation website Flightright.com said that with 
around 800 flights canceled at Gatwick and Heathrow on Saturday 
and Sunday, BA was looking at having to pay around 61 million 
euros ($68 million) in compensation under EU rules. That does 
not include the cost of reimbursing customers for hotel stays.

BA would fully honor its compensation obligations, Cruz said. Of 
the 75,000 passengers who missed out on flights, around two-
thirds would have been flown to their destinations by the end of 
Monday, he added.

COST CUTTING

BA has been cutting costs to respond to competition on short-
haul routes from Ryanair and easyJet and recently faced 
criticism for starting to charge passengers for their in-flight 
snacks.

Ireland's Ryanair was quick to seize on the marketing 
opportunity, tweeting "Should have flown Ryanair" with a picture 
of the 'Computer says no' sketch from the TV series "Little 
Britain" to poke fun at BA.

Ryanair said it had seen a spike in bookings over the weekend 
but gave no further details.

The GMB union said that BA's IT systems had shortcomings after 
they made a number of staff redundant and shifted their work to 
India in 2016.

"This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of 
dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work 
to India," Mick Rix, GMB National Officer for Aviation, said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-airports-heathrow-
idUSKBN18P01O
   

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British Airways vows 'never again' after costly (INDIA) IT collapse "Outsourced Indian IT, Right British Airways?" <treason@britishairways.com> - 2017-06-06 04:47 +0200

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