British Airways 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 centers and website. The airline was returning to normal on Monday, planning to run more than 95% of flights from London Heathrow and Gatwick, with only a handful of short-haul flights cancelled. BA CE 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. 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.<br/>
oneworld
After a catastrophic computer failure that stranded 75,000 of its passengers at the weekend, British Airways must have been hoping to keep a low profile as its operations got back to normal on Monday. So Britain's flag carrier could probably have done without parting John Peers, the top seed in the men's doubles competition at the French Open, from his tennis rackets en route to Paris. "Thanks British Airways for leaving my tennis bag in London! Not like I need it for Roland Garros or anything," Peers said on his twitter feed. "Any chance you can find and send my rackets from London to Paris please." Peers and his Finnish partner Henri Kontinen are due to play their first match in the tournament, the second of the season's four grand slam events, on Tuesday morning against Spaniards David Marrero and Tommy Robredo.<br/>
BA’s epic meltdown over a busy holiday weekend further fanned public outrage of an industry infamous for its focus on cost cuts over customer service, leaving the UK carrier scrambling to explain how a local computer outage could lead to thousands of stranded passengers. Amid United’s dragging fiasco, mass cancellations at Delta and US concerns about terrorists using laptops to down planes, the global aviation industry hardly needed another blow. But then on Saturday morning, a brief power surge knocked out BA’s communications systems grounding the carrier’s entire London operations, leading to days of chaos and putting the new chief executive officer in the hot seat. A full flight schedule is due to resume Tuesday. With nearly 600 flights cancelled and luggage unable to be dispersed, images and horror stories quickly coursed through social media. Damages for rebooking and compensating customers is estimated at about E100m, or about 3% of the annual operating profit of parent IAG SA. The image damage could be even greater as BA appears to have no idea how it all happened. “We’re absolutely committed to finding out the root causes of this particular event,” said CE Alex Cruz. He did, however, rule out a cyber attack, which suggests the faults are homegrown. The airline’s communications systems are now working again and British Airways will run full flight schedules at London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports on May 30, it said.<br/>
Royal Jordanian Airlines has appointed Stefan Pichler as president and CEO from June, the airline announced May 28. Pichler, former CEO of airberlin, succeeds Suleiman Obeidat. RJ has had a succession of CEOs in recent years. Royal Jordanian chairman Said Darwazah noted Pichler’s three decades of airline industry experience, which has included spells as managing director at Fiji Airways and CEO at Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways. Pichler started his career in sales at Lufthansa, working his way up to become CCO of the German flag-carrier. Darwazah added that Pichler’s appointment followed a lengthy selection process by the airline’s board and that efforts were needed to increase both the airline’s revenues and competitiveness.<br/>