BA’s three-day flight disruption likely to cost carrier £80 million

The three-day computer system outage which began over the holiday weekend of May 27-29 looks likely to cost the British flag-carrying airline approximately £80 million (US$102 million) according to British Airways’ parent company, IAG. This is just under half initial estimates of £150 million (US$191 million) put forward immediately after the event
At an IAG shareholders’ meeting held in Madrid, Willie Walsh, IAG Chief Executive, said that “Initial assessment of the gross cost of the disruption is in the order of £80 million,” adding that “British Airways is working hard to ensure that affected passengers are compensated as soon as possible.”
Shares in IAG fell 4% on the Tuesday following the disruption, reducing the group’s value by £170 million (US$217 million.) BA was forced to cancel 726 flights worldwide, affecting over 75,000 passengers. Walsh has indicated that human error could be to blame after an engineer disconnected and then reconnected a power supply to the British Airways data centre in “an uncontrolled and uncommanded fashion”. He told an industry conference in Mexico last week that “You could cause a mistake to disconnect the power — it’s difficult for me to understand how you can mistakenly reconnect the power.” Walsh also said that “physical damage to the servers and distribution panels” was caused, making it difficult for BA to overcome the power outage quickly. He has confirmed that an independent investigation will be carried out.