BA liable for £150 million compensation over flight delays, cancellations
- CEO blamed for IT meltdown
- Airline ‘progressively’ resolving glitch, Lagos flight resumes
Experts have said British Airways could now be liable for £150million compensation, the largest ever payment just as the airline boss Alex Cruz has been blamed for causing the computer meltdown that saw thousands of passengers stranded on Saturday after outsourcing hundreds of IT job to India.
Passengers have some rights under EU law to claim compensation for delayed or cancelled flights for services that departed within the EU or were operated by a European airline.
Delays of more than three hours for short-haul flights (up to 1,500km or 930 miles) attract compensation of €250 (£218); while the figure is €400 for medium-haul trips (1,500km to 3,500km).
The airline is progressively resolving the problem that led to the grounding of over 1, 000 flights of the carrier all over the world.
Flights were taking off from Gatwick on Sunday, though some were running with an hour of delays.
Country Commercial Manager (Nigeria and West Africa), British Airways, Mr. Kola Olayinka told Woleshadare.net that the problem was been ‘progressively resolved’, adding that London flight to Lagos landed in Lagos at about 6pm. He stated that the carrier would also depart Lagos at 11.45pm yesterday for London.
Country Commercial Manager (Nigeria and West Africa), British Airways, Mr. Kola Olayinka told Woleshadare.net that the problem was been ‘progressively resolved’, adding that London flight to Lagos landed in Lagos at about 6pm. He stated that the carrier would also depart Lagos at 11.45pm yesterday for London.
On Saturday, BA cancelled flight to Lagos as Lagos flight was among the 1, 200 flights cancelled worldwide.
Olayinka disclosed that the Abuja flight departed shortly before the glitch. Except the problem is urgently resolved, Abuja flight from London could also be affected.
Cruz, who founded low-cost carrier Clickair and headed budget airline Vueling before being appointed BA chief last year, was accused of replacing highly-skilled British IT professionals with low-cost overseas workers.
Cruz, who founded low-cost carrier Clickair and headed budget airline Vueling before being appointed BA chief last year, was accused of replacing highly-skilled British IT professionals with low-cost overseas workers.
GMB union chiefs said the IT outage, which experts believed could cost the airline £150million in compensation, would have been avoided if those jobs had been allowed to remain in the UK.
The accusation came as people stuck at Heathrow, where dozens more flights were cancelled on Sunday, vented their fury – describing the situation there as ‘leaderless’ and ‘chaotic’.
Since being appointed in April last year, Cruz has overseen a cost-cutting drive that removed free food from short-haul flights and has seen customer satisfaction plunge.
Spokesman for BA said many of their IT systems were backed up yesterday and doing all they can to restore,” our flight programmes and get as many as possible of our customers away on their travels. At Gatwick, we are running a near-full operation”.
“At Heathrow, we are aiming to fly all our long-haul services but the knock-on effects of yesterday’s disruption are causing delays and some short-haul cancellations. We are very sorry for the disruption and frustration that customers are experiencing and thank them for their patience and understanding.
“We want to assure them that we are working around the clock to restore our operation. Our terminals at Heathrow are still congested – so we are asking customers not to come to the airport unless they have a confirmed booking for today and know their flight is operating”.
He noted that the status of flights can be checked on ba.com. Because of the large numbers at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, customers should not turn up at the terminal until 90 minutes before their flight’s scheduled departure time.
Thousands of passengers have been affected after British Airways cancelled all of its flights from Heathrow and Gatwick airports.
A problem with the airline’s IT systems caused long queues, delays and eventually the cancellation of flights.
Heathrow said it has posted extra staff at the terminals and warned BA passengers on flights before 6pm not to go to the airport.
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