British Airways boss 'won't resign' after flight chaos
IT failure, not cost-cutting measures, blamed for mass cancellations
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
The boss of British Airways has said he will not resign after thousands of passengers were left stranded over the bank holiday weekend, claiming the disruption had nothing to do with cutting costs.
BA chief executive Alex Cruz told the BBC that Saturday's IT failure, which caused mass cancelations, was due to a power surge and not because of technical staff being outsourced from the UK to India.
In his first interview since the incident, which affected more than 75,000 holidaymakers, Cruz said he was "profusely sorry" to the thousands of passengers still stranded at airports worldwide and added that the company was working to "make sure that it doesn't happen again".
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
However, "questions remain about how a power problem could have had such impact", says the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones. "One theory was that returning systems were unusable as the data had become unsynchronised".
On Monday, the GMB union repeated its claims that the disruption could have been avoided if BA had not outsourced IT roles last year.
"BA have made substantial profits for a number of years, and many viewed the company's actions as just plain greedy," said the GMB's Mick Rix.
BA is liable to reimburse thousands of passengers for refreshments and hotel expenses, and The Times estimates that the cost could exceed £150m.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com