Originally Posted by HIDDY

Safe to say the relevant authorities will be notified if skulduggery is found to be the cause.

Originally Posted by RoyalSwazi

What has surprised me the most is that a B2C mega brand household name has done such a shabby job in the PR department. I used to work in a different part of the transportation business, however this was cargo. None of these were household names, however my first employer had a very public incident off Australia and my third another near another which also became a headline story in the U.K. Media. At all three companies I worked we had an emergency response team which included a named list of participants. Drills were held several times a year, and part of the drill was to send out regular press releases and make a spokesperson available to external parties (media, customers, families etc). For major incidents like this there would be press conferences. All employees were discouraged from speculating when contacted by third parties and refer everybody to the press contact, however the official communiques would contain a brief explanation of the incident and that we would come back with more information as it became available. I'd be surprised if BA have not held similar drills, but even if they haven't this is a massive fail on management's part.

Originally Posted by Ber2dca

Based on what I've seen this BA management team is entirely numbers-driven. These are guys who want to see "BA announces new record earnings this quarter" on the Sky News ticker in the morning more than anything. That's what gives them a kick, that's high fives territory.

The entire BA response appears to be shaped by "how do we save the fiscal metrics here?" rather than "how do we get the company to look fairly good here?".

Aside from the lack of a PR response yesterday, we've already seen refusal of reimbursement for alternative transport as well as signs pointing to blanket EU261 refusals.

I'm not saying they don't care at all about public perception, but it clearly takes a backseat to other considerations.

Originally Posted by MPH1980

While I think Alex's post on Yammer could use some refinement in places - the core message is right.

"We're working on fixing it, we'll figure out what happened and what we can improve on later, either help or leave us to it"

I've spent many hours/days/weeks (collectively - not at once!) in crisis mode in IT. When a system is down and you are recovering - you fix first, wash up later. And you wash up when everyone's had a chance to rest so that everyone is fresh and can discuss it properly.

If you can find the root cause - you fix it. If you can't - you add logging/checks around the suspicious areas and come up with a faster recovery plan for next time.

You also need to keep in mind that the list of people Alex will have been talking to will have been extensive - not just talking with the IT teams - but also legal, customer service, big investors, IAG board members, contact centre management etc etc etc. It's clear there's frustration at the queries being raised on Yammer and I get his point - the time for the hard questions will come - but fix the problem first.

The people who are asking these questions probably believe they are helping to get to the bottom of the problem. Right now - that's not the task.

As I said - could it use some refinement? Perhaps tone a little of the frustration down? Sure! Underlying message? Spot on.

Originally Posted by greg5

Is negligence an extraordinary circumstance?

Just because you move systems to 'The Cloud', or as we old timers would call it: 'Mainframe Timesharing', it doesn't mean that you've moved your responsibility to understand how it works.

Originally Posted by greg5

Is negligence an extraordinary circumstance?

Just because you move systems to 'The Cloud', or as we old timers would call it: 'Mainframe Timesharing', it doesn't mean that you've moved your responsibility to understand how it works.