British Airways vows "never again" after costly IT collapse

[webfact]

BA vows "never again" after costly IT collapse

By Alistair Smout

REUTERS
 

People wait with their luggage at the British Airways check in desks at Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, Britain May 28, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall

 

LONDON (Reuters) - 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 centres 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 cancelled.

 

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.

 

"Apologises 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 cancelled 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 honour 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.

 

Cruz rejected the union criticism.

 

"They've all been local issues around a local data centre, which has been managed and fixed by local resources," he told Sky News.

 

Several passengers complained about a lack of information from BA staff at the airport. Others said their luggage had been lost.

 

The airline said it was working to get reunite passengers with their luggage after many items were left at Heathrow over the weekend, although staff on Twitter warned this "could take some time".

 

While other airlines have been hit by computer problems, the scale and length of BA's troubles were unusual.

 

Delta Air Lines Inc cancelled thousands of flights and delayed many others last August after an outage hit its computer systems.

 

Last month, Germany's Lufthansa and Air France suffered a global system outage which briefly prevented them from boarding passengers. ($1 = 0.8937 euros)

 

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; Additional reporting by Victoria Bryan in Berlin, Costas Pitas in London and Ismail Shakil in Bengaluru; Editing by Keith Weir)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-05-30

[ezzra]

It begs the question, whey BA didn't take ' steps ' in insure that a calamity

such as this would have happened? why is that a catastrophe has to happened

before everyone saying' never again? what? you don't have enough qualified

people working at BA to prevent such thing from happening?....

[Becker]

16 minutes ago, ezzra said:

It begs the question, whey BA didn't take ' steps ' in insure that a calamity

such as this would have happened? why is that a catastrophe has to happened

before everyone saying' never again? what? you don't have enough qualified

people working at BA to prevent such thing from happening?....

Exactly! It should never have happened in the first place. That it did speaks of utter incompetence.

[petermik]

Just another costly computer "glitch"

[NanLaew]

Occupations to watch out for on prospective employment resumes.

 

IT power system manager for BA.

 

Customer Service manager at United Airlines Chicago.

 

Leader of the United Kingdom's Labour Party 12 September 2015 - Present

 

o-ring quality control manager for Morton-Thiokol.

 

 

[timkeen08]

Even when lightning strikes down the line a resluting power surge can be quite massive. Nothing yet made can guarantee total electronic protection from mother nature. All inclusive redundant realtime IT systems (not backups) can cost more than the original system and they were told by those holding the purse strings to cut costs. The cost of compensation was probably cheaper than an additional redundant IT system. Only time will tell if they really do open the purse strings. No different than any business with share holders.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

[Basil B]

Power surges and outages do happen, even in the UK, but are extremely rare.

 

I can not remember when I last had a power outage or even a surge that caused the PC to crash, this is probably the problem that lead to BA being complacent, seems the problems are due to lack of system testing and no or outdated back up plans and relying on IT support from India.

 

Have any of you had to deal with call centres in Mumbai, to even get your call answered is often a long wait of 20 or more minutes (probably engaged in other business calling you and me, "have you got PPI" or "You had a car accident, not your fault", etc.) and when you do get through you seem to end up talking to someone on another planet? I have two jobs booked this morning where we most likely need to get authorisation from a Mumbai call centre, we probable end up walking away from the jobs after a hour of trying to get through and any sense out of Mumbai.

 

But I feel for BA there is only one person to blame.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40082634

 

[retarius]

I just missed this catastrophe. Unusual for me as I was caught in the yellow shirt close down of Suvarnabhumi and still no one has gone to jail for that.

[dick dasterdly]

6 hours ago, ezzra said:

It begs the question, whey BA didn't take ' steps ' in insure that a calamity

such as this would have happened? why is that a catastrophe has to happened

before everyone saying' never again? what? you don't have enough qualified

people working at BA to prevent such thing from happening?....

Too expensive to employ good staff.

 

Far cheaper to employ as few staff as possible, many of whom don't have the faintest idea what they're doing....

[Luckysilk]

4 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Occupations to watch out for on prospective employment resumes.

 

IT power system manager for BA.

 

Customer Service manager at United Airlines Chicago.

 

Leader of the United Kingdom's Labour Party 12 September 2015 - Present

 

o-ring quality control manager for Morton-Thiokol.

 

 

 

[dick dasterdly]

Just now, dick dasterdly said:

Too expensive to employ good staff.

 

Far cheaper to employ as few staff as possible, many of whom don't have the faintest idea what they're doing....

I became bad-tempered about this sort of thing when talking to a bank employee - and had to explain how direct debits worked!

 

It seems more than likely that the attitude of always finding the cheapest possible staff (apart from those at the top obviously....) has spread.....

[Ace of Pop]

Like Thai Visa.?.[emoji85]


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

[sanukjim]

6 hours ago, Becker said:

Exactly! It should never have happened in the first place. That it did speaks of utter incompetence.

Like most airlines today they try to get by on the cheapest way until it cost them.

[soalbundy]

When working in politics or with computers never say 'never'

[dick dasterdly]

48 minutes ago, Ace of Pop said:

Like Thai Visa.?.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Thai Visa is entirely different.  Its a 'gathering' with experience in different sections of life.

 

But one should NEVER have to explain (whilst talking on the 'phone) to a bank employee re. direct debits - how they work .

 

This was years ago, which is why it doesn't suprise me that BA employed the cheapest possible employees - and ended up in one hell of a mess (grounding airports?)  as a result of their costly "IT collapse".....

[trogers]

7 hours ago, Becker said:

Exactly! It should never have happened in the first place. That it did speaks of utter incompetence.

Shows that cost cutting should start at the top...

[Argus Tuft]

6 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Occupations to watch out for on prospective employment resumes.

 

6 hours ago, NanLaew said:

 

o-ring quality control manager for Morton-Thiokol.

 

 

I think that ship may have already sailed NanLaew :)

[Orton Rd]

Never again is something a lot of ex passengers are saying as well

[SheungWan]

Every few years BA has an utter meltdown. I haven't used them for over 10 years. (I still remember the BA shambles in Terminal 4 when I tried to check-in with Finnair)  However, immediately after such disasters it is worth noting that BA start discounting their fares like crazy to face down the 'Never Again' guys. So....those of you checking out fares to Thailand later in the year might want to keep a very close eye on BA fares during the next fortnight.

Edited May 30, 2017 by SheungWan

[JHolmesJr]

Just goes to show that CEOs are just as lost as ordinary people….and rarely worth their salary.

Edited May 30, 2017 by JHolmesJr

[YetAnother]

IC; a learning experience; seems prevention is a word they are not very familiar with ; as a former IT manager, we would constantly scan the horizons (kinda like the ant antennae seems to)

[Basil B]

Have choice to fly BA or Emirates?

 

Based on;

• cost
• quality of service
• reliability

the answer is a no brainer... Emirates come out on top every time.

[brewsterbudgen]

Have choice to fly BA or Emirates?
 
Based on;

• cost
• quality of service
• reliability

the answer is a no brainer... Emirates come out on top every time.

Unfortunately Emirates don't fly direct to London from Bangkok. So for me, the only choices are BA, Thai and EVA. The last two times it has been BA, based mostly on cost. I've just booked Christmas flights and this time EVA is a lot cheaper. Thankfully.

[Kadilo]

Unfortunately Emirates don't fly direct to London from Bangkok. So for me, the only choices are BA, Thai and EVA. The last two times it has been BA, based mostly on cost. I've just booked Christmas flights and this time EVA is a lot cheaper. Thankfully.

I've been coming over for quite a few years and only once has BA been quoted cheaper than the other two and that time I used them and tbh it was inferior to both EVA and Thai Air. I've just returned with EVA and another good journey although I rate Thai AIr the best of the bunch and always use unless price is ridiculously more than EVA.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[GuiseppeD]

1 hour ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Unfortunately Emirates don't fly direct to London from Bangkok. So for me, the only choices are BA, Thai and EVA. The last two times it has been BA, based mostly on cost. I've just booked Christmas flights and this time EVA is a lot cheaper. Thankfully.

As you state, brewsterbudgen, it's all about the direct flight.  My wife and I were caught up in Saturday's fiasco at T5.  We are now in LOS without our luggage and short one day of our holiday. 

 

BA management abandoned their loyal staff and they abandoned their customers.  Cruz has to go and a top to tail rethink of what constitutes true customer service.

 

I was sweating like a pedo in Mothercare by the time we were eventually allowed to leave T5 on Saturday and my wife was obviously extremely upset.  Thereafter, we were left to fend for ourselves. 

 

BA are going to receive a sizable claim from us nearing, if not in excess of, 1000 pounds. 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2017 by GuiseppeD

[Basil B]

Just now, brewsterbudgen said:

Unfortunately Emirates don't fly direct to London from Bangkok. So for me, the only choices are BA, Thai and EVA. The last two times it has been BA, based mostly on cost. I've just booked Christmas flights and this time EVA is a lot cheaper. Thankfully.

BA has only one direct flight per day from LHR, it will take me 2 hours from brum + extra hour to safeguard for hold ups,+ an extra 2 hours to check in and get to the gate.

Yet Emirates has 20 flights from 6 different UK airports daily, most have connection flights to Bangkok with little over 2 hours in Dubai, and most fight use the A380.

 

 Also I would rather travel to Manchester or even Newcastle or Glasgow from Brum than use London Hell Hole. 

[GuiseppeD]

33 minutes ago, Kadilo said:

I've been coming over for quite a few years and only once has BA been quoted cheaper than the other two and that time I used them and tbh it was inferior to both EVA and Thai Air. I've just returned with EVA and another good journey although I rate Thai AIr the best of the bunch and always use unless price is ridiculously more than EVA.

My wife and I like EVA but Thai wasn't our bag in business last November and won't be booking them again anytime soon. 

 

We were fortunate to re-book our Saturday BA CW flight to Sunday and, I have to say, it was comparable to EVA.  The service and 'honeymoon' cubicle was great.  Will definitely travel on BA CW again to LOS if the price is competitive.

 

 

[Kadilo]

My wife and I like EVA but Thai wasn't our bag in business last November and won't be booking them again anytime soon. 
 
We were fortunate to re-book our Saturday BA CW flight to Sunday and, I have to say, it was comparable to EVA.  The service and 'honeymoon' cubicle was great.  Will definitely travel on BA CW again to LOS if the price is competitive.
 
 

Apologies forgot to say I was referring only to Economy. I've no experience of business.


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[GuiseppeD]

3 minutes ago, Kadilo said:

Apologies forgot to say I was referring only to Economy. I've no experience of business.

 

No worries, Kadilo.  You're right, though, different experiences across the classes.

[GuiseppeD]

11 minutes ago, Basil B said:

Also I would rather travel to Manchester or even Newcastle or Glasgow from Brum than use London Hell Hole. 

If everything is working then I would hardly describe LHR as a hellhole.  Last Saturday was hell at T5 but that was an exception to the rule.