British Airways: Global computer systems outage causes major delays & cancellations

shaun_from_Africa

Sicard wrote: »

Is it beyond the realms of human intelligence for airlines or airports to at least have a stockpile of single mattresses stored away for emergencies such as this.

To cover what happened at Gatwick at Heathrow yesterday, you would need hundreds, if not thousands of single mattresses.
Apart from the space that these would take up, they would have to be regularly inspected and cleaned & disinfected after each use.
Because of the cost and logistics involved, I can't see that individual airlines or airport operators would consider this as a viable service.

worldtraveller

Welcome to ba.com

Major IT system failure latest information
09.30 Sunday May 28

Following the major IT system failure experienced throughout Saturday, we are continuing to work hard to fully restore all of our global IT systems.

We expect some further disruption today, but we are aiming to operate the majority of services from Heathrow and a near normal schedule at Gatwick.

Please do not come to the airports unless you have a confirmed booking for travel. At this time we are unable to process re-bookings at the airport terminals. You can check the status of your flight here and your individual booking by clicking on the Manage My Book tab.

We are extremely sorry for the significant levels of disruption caused to customers and understand how frustrating their experiences have been.

We recognise the uncertainty that some customers may be feeling and have therefore extended our flexible booking policy.

Affected customers can claim a full refund or rebook to a future date for travel up until the end of November 2017.

Customers are urged to keep any food, transport or accommodation receipts and can make a claim in due course through our Customer Relations teams. There are a significant number of bags at Heathrow which we will be reuniting with customers via couriers as soon as we can. This will be done free of charge.

We will continue to update this information, and you can find the latest updates here.

Please don't come to Heathrow to collect your delayed bags, as they are in the process of being sorted for onward distribution in secure airside locations.

British Airways

Sicard

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

To cover what happened at Gatwick at Heathrow yesterday, you would need hundreds, if not thousands of single mattresses.
Apart from the space that these would take up, they would have to be regularly inspected and cleaned & disinfected after each use.
Because of the cost and logistics involved, I can't see that individual airlines or airport operators would consider this as a viable service.

Fair enough. Let the passengers rot then.

PeacefulWaters

They were dishing out gym mats.

martindow

PeacefulWaters wrote: »

They were dishing out gym mats.

Yoga mats - just the job for sleeping on and also for doing yoga to create calm mindfulness for their passengers. BA at least got that part right!

shaun_from_Africa

Sicard wrote: »

Fair enough. Let the passengers rot then.

I didn't say that I agree with it but in the end, all the airlines and airport operators care about is the bottom line figure on their accounts and if this can be a bit higher because they didn't spend tens of thousands of £s for something that is only needed very infrequently, that's exactly what they are going to do.

[Deleted User]

Is anyone really surprised by this ?
I've avoided flying The World's Favourite Airline(sic) for many years now having witnessed the massive deterioration in customer service and general flying conditions with them.
Staff became disgruntled and rude,the planes I flew in were often cramped and filthy and I gradually saw fewer reasons for wanting to fly with them.
The last year or two has seen a catalogue of PR disasters and this latest looks like being a spectacular own goal.
Television news reports featuring disgruntled passengers complaining about the complete absence of BA ground staff and social media swamped by negative publicity.
The BBC's Chief political interrogator Andrew Neil was complaining he'd been specifically told to get to the airport for his flight then with half an hour to go before schedule departure was informed it was delayed by three hours.
Why anyone still has any loyalty to this tarnished brand is beyond me - there are so many better airlines to fly.

bigadaj

BA would be well down my list of airlines to fly going east, the majority of middle and far eastern airlines are far better.

Going west is less clear cut, the us airlines are generally pretty poor, so BA is still a viable option to the new world.

shaun_from_Africa

I fly long haul twice a month and still choose BA every time.
This is only because of the flight timings and the fact that I can go direct from Gatwick to my destination as every other option requires either a Heathrow departure or switching airlines en-route.

I've been doing this for the past 6 and a bit years and the degradation of BA's service has been extremely noticeable, mainly in the past 2 or 3 years.

John259

bigadaj wrote: »

Going west is less clear cut

For those of us lucky enough to live near a UK airport with feeder flights to Amsterdam, KLM is a good choice.