British Airways flight schedules at London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports are back to normal but the airline was Wednesday still attempting to reunite some passengers with their bags after a crippling IT failure on Saturday.
The airline said it was making “good progress’’ in reuniting bags with customers around the world as it continued to count the cost of the systems failure that affected its operations worldwide and caused chaos as all BA flights were halted at Heathrow and Gatwick.
One estimate is that the meltdown will cost the airline more £100 million in lost sales and compensation.
The airline has been using couriers to reunite passengers with their bags but warned in its latest missive this may still take some time to complete.
“Although we have already flown many bags to the correct airport, there is still some work to do and we know there are still significant numbers of customers who are yet to receive their luggage,’’ it said.
“We are very sorry for the frustration this situation is causing at a very busy time of year for holidays.
“Given the nature of global travel, it may take some time to complete the process of reuniting bags with their owners around the world.’’
BA has blamed the meltdown on power surge chief executive Alex Cruz described on Monday as “so strong it rendered the back-up system ineffective’’. However, some experts have questioned how the airline allowed this to happen.
“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.
The failure affected BA flights worldwide as its check-in and operational systems crashed, including call centres, forcing the carrier to communicate via its website and Twitter.
Coming during a British bank holiday weekend, It caused long queues and confusion at airports and left planes stuck on runways.
The airline extended its flexible booking policy to allow passengers due to fly from the airports Sunday and Monday to rebook to travel up to June 10 even if their flight was operating.
Apologising for the disruption, BA said affected customers could claim a full refund or rebook to a future date for travel up until the end of November 2017.
It urged customers to keep any food, transport or accommodation receipts so they could make a compensation claim.
The airline also faces compensation claims under European Union rules requiring payments of up to 600 euros, depending on the delay and the length of the flight. The Independent reported the airline had agreed to meet all claims under EU rules and had softened its stance on covering flights passengers booked on their own initiative to get to a destination.
This could mean a compensation bill as high as £100 million, according to The Guardian newspaper.
The head of compensation claim site Resolver, James Walker, told the newspaper BA handled BA handled about 120,000 passengers a day in and out of Heathrow and Gatwick, indicating a bill of close to £50m under EU-backed compensation rules.
Added to this was the cost of meals, accommodation and courier services for bags.
“This is not like an ash cloud or traffic controllers’ strike that can’t be predicted,’’ Walker said. “The computer system breaking down is within its control. BA is going to have to pay out and it looks like its costs will be north of £100m.”
