British Airways doesn’t blame Indian firm for flight disruption

London, May 29 (IANS) British Airways has not blamed any Indian IT firm for the massive flight disruption over the last weekend that hit more than 1,000 flights.

Reacting to the incident that saw most services cancelled from London's Heathrow and Gatwick airports on May 27, British Airways told The Registrar that the problem occurred due to "power failure" and not because of any IT company.

"We would never compromise the integrity and security of our IT systems. IT services are now provided globally by a range of suppliers and this is very common practice across all industries," British Airways CEO Alex Cruz told The Registrar.

The unions had blamed the airline's decision last year to outsource IT jobs to India for the mass disruptions.

The GMB union, which had cautioned against outsourcing jobs, said BA laid off hundreds of IT staff and gave away the work to India. The union blamed cost cutting for the travel chaos.

According to Cruz, many of the airline's IT systems were back on Sunday "and my colleagues across the airline are working very hard to build back our flight programme and get as many of our customers as possible away on their travels.

"The airline's IT teams are working 'tirelessly' to fix the problems," Cruz added.

According to The Guardian, British Airways could face a bill of at least 100 million pounds in compensation, additional customer care and lost business resulting from the incident.