BA cancels flights from London as global IT outage causes chaos

[baboon]

12 minutes ago, Basil B said:

I am in the UK only just catching up on the news, as the Beeb is still focused on world news, so much info relates to yesterdays news.

 

Passengers stuck at airports worldwide, passengers stuck on planes at LHR for hours.

 

This could be the final nail in the coffin of BA.

 

A look at recent reviews on Skytrax would certainly back that up...

[Andaman Al]

43 minutes ago, baboon said:

They could just park up aircraft nose to tail on taxiways, I presume. There might not be enough gates but there is plenty of concrete.

Having paper as a backup for computer failures is a sensible idea, though. That's why it won't happen.

Correct. Interestingly it was exactly that problem that started the chain of events that led to what is still the worlds worst airline disaster, the KLM, Pan American crash on the runway many years ago. The parking 'jam' of aircraft was caused by the threat of a terrorist bomb at the destination airport in the Canary Islands, so all aircraft had to land at  Tenerife.

 

I am sure that now hackers have witnessed the Global disruption and the unimaginable losses incurred by BA yesterday the airlines have now become a new target to toy with. 

[Rimmer]

An off topic troll post has been removed

[elgordo38]

3 hours ago, Briggsy said:

This will cost them a huge amount of money.

Will be passed onto the paying public. 

[CGW]

6 minutes ago, elgordo38 said:

Will be passed onto the paying public. 

Yep! they are a 7 billion sterling company, they can do what they wont, seems to be how it works these days!

[impulse]

3 hours ago, Briggsy said:

This will cost them a huge amount of money.

 

But I'd bet that it pales in comparison to the incidental losses by their customers who have had their entire itineraries (many non-refundable) wiped out and their precious holidays ruined.  Imagine just the loss in man-hours of the poor people stuck in the airports for hours on end- at some kind of average labor rate.

 

It will be interesting to see if the media ever tallies the losses to BA, the travel insurance companies and the unrecoverable losses to the poor passengers...

 

And it would also be of great value to see which travel insurance companies come through, and which ones disappoint.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2017 by impulse

[Basil B]

2 hours ago, CGW said:

But! their profits go up! this is the driving and most important factor in any business these days, the corporations and bankers rule! - sad

Watch IAG's (International Consolidated Airlines Group,) BA's parent companies share price on Monday in Madrid and Tuesday in London... (when the LSE opens after the bank holiday Monday).

 

 

BA say they hope to run a near normal service today, (I presume they mean near normal service for BA). 

 

It is very clear that the figures banded around are very much an under estimate, "a few thousand passengers affected"... 

 

BA carried over 42 million passengers last year, this weekend is one of the busiest weekends for UK flights, disruption started yesterday morning, I estimate 2/3 of BA's flights were cancelled yesterday, probably a lot more than 100,000 passengers had their flights cancelled.

 

Now start to work out what it will cost them?

• Passenger claims for hotels, meals, extended parking fees, missed connecting flights, etc.
• Virtually a days revenue down the pan.
• days of disruption with crews and planes in the wrong place, delayed crews unable to do their next roistered flights due to lack of statutory rest.  
• Air planes, grounded at many airports, will probably incur lots of charges including aircraft parking, baggage handling and storage, and other charges incurred by the airports that will be passed on to BA.
• Cargo, loss of time critical & perishable goods.
• Claims for damages from other airlines for the disruption to their services.
• Legal fees, as BA try to prove they are not responsible.

Could well be more than a £Billion loss...

Edited May 28, 2017 by Basil B

[Basil B]

25 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

But I'd bet that it pales in comparison to the incidental losses by their customers who have had their entire itineraries (many non-refundable) wiped out and their precious holidays ruined.  Imagine just the loss in man-hours of the poor people stuck in the airports for hours on end- at some kind of average labor rate.

 

It will be interesting to see if the media ever tallies the losses to BA, the travel insurance companies and the unrecoverable losses to the poor passengers...

 

And it would also be of great value to see which travel insurance companies come through, and which ones disappoint.

 

 

My thoughts on this is a good travel insurance company should pay out and bill/sue BA...

[champers]

BA are getting an awful lot of bad publicity from this event. People standing around for hours on end without being offered so much as a bottle of water and no updates from BA staff, who appear to have gone into hiding to avoid the inevitable flak.I imagine much of their Comms is up the creek too.

[Briggsy]

Will passengers be covered by the EU compulsory compensation scheme in this case?

[Basil B]

6 minutes ago, champers said:

BA are getting an awful lot of bad publicity from this event. People standing around for hours on end without being offered so much as a bottle of water and no updates from BA staff, who appear to have gone into hiding to avoid the inevitable flak.I imagine much of their Comms is up the creek too.

Probably staff were unable to contact management as they were on holiday...

 

If I was on the front line (check-in, ticketing inquiry desk), I would want directors and senior management to be there to take the flack...

[Basil B]

12 minutes ago, Briggsy said:

Will passengers be covered by the EU compulsory compensation scheme in this case?

Airlines can only refuse payment if the delay was the result of an “extraordinary circumstance” beyond their control...

 

It was supposedly a power cut,  one would think they will try to wriggle out on that (beyond their control) but I am sure it will not be long before a whistle blower leaks a memo where a recommendation for a back up system that would have prevented yesterdays system failure was turned down on cost.

[thaibeachlovers]

7 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

I hope this comes as a wake up call to the world. The new world of computers envolved with running everything is all dependent on electricity. Shut off the electricity and shut off the whole system. The world is becoming more vulnerable everyday. I just hope it is not to early for people to wake up and see IT is not for what it appears. 

  How long  could things go on without electricity? Not long. After one day even cellphones would stop working with no way for them to be recharge their batteries.The world of great communications would come to a stand still.

  Think about it kids.

LOL. There have been backup power systems for computers since last century, and are we supposed to believe that a multi billion dollar operation like BA doesn't have any switched on people in their IT? A more likely explanation would be that BA management are so incompetent that they don't resource their IT department properly.

 

I wonder when enough people will wake up and see that putting all society's functions into one basket ( computerisation ) is going to lead to disaster to force a change?

If nothing else, the ransomware attack showed just how vulnerable everything is now.

 

I am now waiting to see what happens when all the people that use credit cards for everything find their cards don't work because the banks computer systems don't work.

 

 

Addition- I just read a post on page 1 saying BA outsourced their IT to India, so that would tend to support my theory that BA management are incompetent.

 

What is a bit surprising to me is that this situation is just a small item on Sky news. This incident should be ringing alarm bells and having far more attention.

Up date- they are just now having an expanded discussion about it, but it took them a while.

Edited May 28, 2017 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

3 hours ago, Andaman Al said:

imagine for a moment the consequences if Kim Jong Un managed to set off an exoatmospheric nuclear detonation with the resulting electromagnetic pulse. What we saw yesterday was just a tiny snippet of the chaos that would ensue. How about a major solar storm resulting in global electromagnetic pulses.

 

As an aside if there were a global disruption (even continental) with many more airlines affected did you know that there is not enough space at airports around the world to accommodate all the aircraft. We can only land about 60% at anyone time after that - no room (I think at anyone time during the 24 hr cycle, 70% of the worlds passenger aircraft are actually airborne). Everything is run by computer now and we have become complacent to the situation that is potentially devastating that lies dormant for now. Ironically the countries that would face least disruption are the 3rd world countries that still rely on paper.

 

The only thing we can do to minimise the effect is to prepare and have built in redundancy. If we had a large solar storm activity start and then we managed to get at best an 8 minute warning of a major solar electromagnetic pulse about to hit earth (or indeed the imminent likely hood of an exoatmospheric blast), what would you do with all your laptops, phones, computers etc? Do you know?

Have to agree with that.

 

What would I do with my laptop- kiss it goodbye as it becomes an expensive piece of junk.

[thaibeachlovers]

According to Sky News, BA will rebook or refund flights. No mention of compensation.

BA seem not to have given any staff training to handle this situation. Surprising ( or not ) as I seem to remember similar problems for BA in the past.

Their CEO should be worried about his position.

[Basil B]

3 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

According to Sky News, BA will rebook or refund flights. No mention of compensation.

BA seem not to have given any staff training to handle this situation. Surprising ( or not ) as I seem to remember similar problems for BA in the past.

Their CEO should be worried about his position.

Unfortunately the majority of shares will be held by institutions and funds who have very little interest in outing incompetence in board rooms. 

[Basil B]

37 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Addition- I just read a post on page 1 saying BA outsourced their IT to India, so that would tend to support my theory that BA management are incompetent.

[Basil B]

42 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. There have been backup power systems for computers since last century...

Yes,  

1. Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS)
2. Back Up Generators
3. Mirror Servers around the World 

[JHolmesJr]

surprised this isn't a hack.

[Basil B]

9 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

surprised this isn't a hack.

More chance it was an insurgent walking in to a computer centre in Mumbai and unplugging a computer... 

 

It has defiantly got something to do with incompetence in the board room, these sorts of things nether happen at Emerites (touch wood).

[Andaman Al]

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Have to agree with that.

 

What would I do with my laptop- kiss it goodbye as it becomes an expensive piece of junk.

In the event of a electromagnetic pulse or the probability of one put all your electronic inside the passenger area of your car. Your car is a very effective faraday cage.

[impulse]

5 hours ago, champers said:

BA are getting an awful lot of bad publicity from this event. People standing around for hours on end without being offered so much as a bottle of water and no updates from BA staff, who appear to have gone into hiding to avoid the inevitable flak.

 

We occasionally get a thread here about angry British tourists.  

 

I don't blame BA staff for going into hiding.  Flak was the least of their worries.

 

Edited May 28, 2017 by impulse

[Basil B]

42 minutes ago, Andaman Al said:

In the event of a electromagnetic pulse or the probability of one put all your electronic inside the passenger area of your car. Your car is a very effective faraday cage.

And unplug everything, any cable/wire/circuit track will act as an aerial pumping high voltages into you equipment, the longer it is the more the problem will be amplified, during the cold war the Russians developed military radios that used vacuum tubes (valves) to replace semiconductors.

[thaibeachlovers]

6 hours ago, impulse said:

 

We occasionally get a thread here about angry British tourists.  

 

I don't blame BA staff for going into hiding.  Flak was the least of their worries.

 

Having been subjected to rude, arrogant, ignorant staff that don't give any information when travel is disrupted, I'm not surprised they hide. The public are sick and tired of being treated like mushrooms ( kept in the dark ) and aren't going to take it anymore.

[thaibeachlovers]

 

https://www.ft.com/content/15cab698-4372-11e7-8519-9f94ee97d996

BA passengers hit by second day of global fallout from IT failure

 

Some interesting things about the IT, much as suggested on these posts.

[KhunBENQ]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4550654/British-Airways-cost-cutting-boss-gags-staff.html

(Daily Mail is blocked for users with Thai IP)

 

Summary:

Cost-cutting Spanish boss gags BA staff: Chief who outsourced 700 IT jobs to India before computer meltdown emails staff to tell them to refrain from 'live commentary' on the crisis which hit 300,000 passengers

• BA boss Alex Cruz was blamed for IT meltdown that saw 1,000 flights disrupted 
• Hundreds of skilled IT jobs at British Airways were outsourced to India last year 
• Travellers queued out doors at Heathrow and Gatwick on Sunday to rebook trips 
• Airline could be liable for £150m compensation - the largest ever such payment 

[KhunBENQ]

To me this Mr. Cruz is just another manager whose only merit/focus is penny pinching to create short term profit rise (and his salary of about 830 k Pound).

I remember another Spanish, Ignacio Lopez, who brought down German GM subsidiary "Opel".

[Andaman Al]

5 minutes ago, KhunBENQ said:

Airline could be liable for £150m compensation - the largest ever such payment 

I bet that has made more than a dent in the savings Mr Cruz made. A man that knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

[KhunBENQ]

His Twitter video message of yesterday.

 

[Andaman Al]

1 minute ago, KhunBENQ said:

I remember another Spanish, Ignacio Lopez, who brought down German GM subsidiary "Opel".

Why bring a foreigner in to manage a national airline or other industry. It is too easy for hidden agendas to be in place and as has been seen, enough damage can be done to critically damage well established national businesses so that 'competitors' can sweep up the ensuing mess, as shown with Opel. A few more days of this and BA will have it's wings clipped.