BA meltdown feeds outrage at airline cost cuts

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/>