10 June, 2017
Customers who saw their flights cancelled are being refunded or rebooked onto new services "as quickly as possible", the airline said.
Air travelers faced delays Saturday because of a worldwide computer systems failure at British Airways, the airline said. It blamed a power supply issue for the outage and said there was no sign it was under cyberattack.
Cruz said BA, part of Europe's largest airline group IAG, planned to fly all its long haul services from Heathrow on Sunday, although there would be delays due to the knock on impact from Saturday's disruption and some short haul flights would be canceled.
BA said it is "aiming to operate a near normal schedule of flights from Gatwick and the majority of our Heathrow services" on Sunday. "Considering the reimbursements for cancelled flights and the costs of lodging stranded passengers, this will have an impact on revenue and the magnitude of the cost will depend on how long the outage lasts and how long it takes to resolve". BA has also advised customers to continue to check the status of their flight on its site www.ba.com before heading off to the airport.
An AFP photographer at Heathrow's Terminal 5 on Saturday said many travellers were waiting outside the departure area with their luggage in "chaotic" scenes.
"They don't automatically rebook you". Where were you trying to go? "I've been deciding whether to sleep in the vehicle", Fiona Lancaster, 49 from Essex, told the BBC.
"We are extremely sorry for the huge inconvenience this is causing our customers, and we understand how frustrating this must be", British Airways chief executive Alex Cruz said in a video message filmed at the carrier's operations centre near Heathrow. Passengers should keep food, transport or accommodation receipts and make any claims through the airline's customer relations department. "This will be done free of charge", it said.
The GMB union has suggested that the systems crash could have been avoided if IT work had not been outsourced.
"IT services are now provided globally by a range of suppliers and this is very common practice across all industries and the UK Government".
