[HairyBloke]

Hi

I was supposed to be flying short haul to Nice with my family on a nice weeks holiday on the Saturday of the outage, and naturally this flight was eventually cancelled. I luckily had ‘inside’ information from friends actually working at T5 when this was all going on so didn’t leave the house.
Executive Club came up first on the US version at around Midnight on the 28th and I managed to put myself and family on a flight on the Monday. Eventually I got through to an Exec Card rep at around 6:30 on the Sunday morning to confirm re-jiggle my inbound flights, at which it seems that my original Saturday outbound booking disappeared. This saved our holiday without BA having to make ‘first contact’. I naturally put in for compensation, and had an email on the 4th effectively saying ‘the cheque is in the post’ … So pretty much all in order there, and naturally I still have my boarding passes in the ‘wallet’ of my phone.

One thing that I see on this thread is talk of people having their TIER level on BA extended for 2 years , I have had no communication from BA on this at all. I was actually still a Gold member at the time of the outage, but my year ended and dropped to Silver on June 1st. Do you believe that I should be getting my Gold status back, or should I be giving BA a nudge?

[YellowBelly]

More here from the BBC on Wee Willie’s excuses: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40186929

[Charles-P]

I was speaking yesterday with a friend who was previously the CEO of one of the main Database Software Systems companies and he talked about how when dealing with either very large corporate customers or governments who suffer a major failure of this kind they will always seek to find what he called “Star Trek Red Shirt” in simple terms the one individual who is going to get the blame and subsequently ‘die off’. The alternative is a report that invariably details successive points of failure throughout the management chain. The now infamous BA / subcontractor technician looks to me being lined up for his ‘red shirt’.

[CathayLoyalist2]

Hot Off The Press. Willie Walsh has now described the outage as , wait for it, “efficiency not cost cutting”. With a compensation bill in the range of GBP100-150 million WW has created a new definition of efficiency. He also says that the “criticism of the company has been unfair”. As this is the 5th IT failure in 18 months I can only assume his favourite movie is “La La Land”. Completely out of touch and not a word of thanks to BA staff in the front line who took the brunt of passenger anger – again!!….and let’s not forget Alex Cruz did a good job – well that’s ok then. I wonder what the boards reaction will be when the review report comes out. Does anyone know which company has been engaged to conduct the review or is it internal?

[openfly]

@CathayLoyalist2 +1 WW and Mrs May have a lot in common!!

[AlanOrton1]

#strongandstableITsystem

[SimonS1]

Sounds to me that WW is lining Cruz up in the cross hairs.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/willie-walsh-not-involved-in-ba-s-it-crisis-mlb95tjvw

He said that Mr Cruz’s lack of visibility in the terminal during the subsequent chaos was not an issue. “In this situation I think Alex did a good job,” he said. “It’s fair to say maybe I would have done things differently, but then I’m a different person.”

He added: “I’ve got to accept that the role I have now is different. When you appoint people to run the business, you’ve got to have confidence in them until the time that maybe you don’t. And then you deal with that.”

[FDOS_UK]

Ah ha, the famous chairman’s vote of confidence?

[esselle]

Over the weekend I saw a letter Al Baker has sent all his employees in light of the impact the current unrest in the region is having on QR’s schedules.

It is simple, clear and in my view full of praise for his team and the efforts they are making to ensure BAU. It is in stark contrast to the letter from the buffoon Cruz to BA staff, doesn’t include any threats, doesn’t make any reference to “guys” and probably even approaches making QR’s team feel proud and motivated………………

[YellowBelly]

So it seems the chaos cost £80M: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40285288

…but guess that does not take into account the business they will lose in future.

[Mathias_K]

Regarding the BA Tier level extension, I received an email offering me this – however, my tier year comes to an end this month, and I already have more than the required tier points needed to “renew” my level for the following year, and even have flights booked for the next year. I’ve raised this issue with BA executive club, but they refused to give me any further information on this, other than “that’s all we can do”. Also, they stated several times now that there is no escalation procedure – which I find very strange indeed.
Giving me the renewal of the Tier year as a goodwill gesture, despite the fact that I already have this – I find this quite insulting. Anyone else who has had this issue? Any suggestions who else to contact?

[MartynSinclair]

Mathias_K – can you explain what you were expecting, despite your tier status not being affected by the outage?

[Mathias_K]

MartynSinclair – I wasn’t expecting anything to start with, but think it’s a ridiculous approach to provide something as a “goodwill gesture” when this has been achieved already. I would imagine that there are customers out there for whom this might indeed be some sort of benefit, but I would have thought that a bit more flexibility would not have gone amiss.

[MartynSinclair]

Mathias_K – old adage, if you haven’t lost anything, don’t expect anything….

At my last BAEC renewal, I was sent a letter inviting me to Gold Guest list along with all the membership details. When I queried where the card was the airline denied ever sending me an invite. When I sent through the letter, they simply said, oh yes.. it was sent in error. Didn’t even get an apology.

Will it stop me flying BA – no chance… I will just drink a little more champagne next time…..

Happy flying….

[AnthonyDunn]

One other thought on this. As a board member, I would certainly want to know how something seemingly as simple as an incorrectly switched off power supply could cause this. What I would also want to know is just what ability or resilience is there for the operational side to cope with the resulting disruption. On the basis of witness accounts from my sister and brother-in-law who were to have flown to PEK that Saturday, it was an exercise in pulling your own teeth as well as making your own alternative arrangements.

[Author]

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