T8191

1. I have numerous user-names and passwords. I am also cautious about revealing too much 'out there'.

2. On Twitter, follow british_airways and then Tweet asking them to DM you. It worked for me, albeit in the opposite direction. They will seek authentication, including full name, BAEC number, postal and email address, and if relevant Booking Reference ... which seems fair and reasonable to me.

EDIT = Please stop calling me "Uncle T". I searched Google to see if I featured under that pseudomym, and discovered http://www.urbandictionary.com/defin...term=Uncle%20T

Calchas

Sorry I did know that, I was just making a joke. :-)

frank_poulankh

Ha! In that case, I apologise for going on at length. (I guess there's no doubt as to where I stand now though, eh? )

hfly

This is only the tip of the iceberg and much worse and widespread that you can imagine. Forget about the IT disaster. Instead focus on the fact that cost cutting has meant:

1) Less than perhaps 40 staff at all of LHR who are able to do simple things like calculate load waits, manually put together flight manifests or seemingly make decisions (because they have gotten rid of almost everyone seemingly older than 35 (let alone 55) in any sort of management position that had the slightest clue as to how to do such things and literally 99% of staff have no clue and literally froze. There were less than 20 people on call at all of LHR and LGW who had the sllightest clue how to deal with such situations, which might be good when a flight or two goes bad, but................

While almost every foreign station keeps a good supply of boarding pass stock and boarding stickers, just for this sort of thing, would you believe, and I have it on good authority that there were hardly any at T5, and these have NOT BEEN REORDERED as a COST SAVINGS ISSUE??!!!

T8191

That sounds perfectly credible with today's BA.

I can hear the call now ...
"Global Airline to Manual and Cross-Check".
"Sorry, Captain, we don't have any form of manual reversion."

Bluebrummie2000

From my perspective there are two questions to answer - who is accountable and who is ultimately responsible. For the former I gues sone has the CIO and VP Customer Service. After all it was an IT failure compounded by an awful customer service engagement that made the headlines. Ultimately, Cruz is responsible for providing leadership and focus. If it is proves that the probelms are directly attributable to cost cutting driving inappropriate IT outsourcing and leaving inexperinced staff on the fornt line then he will alos need to go.

In any event, he will probably have to go as the damage to the brand, BA value to IAG and staff morale on his watch looks pretty terminal. My guessis that since he is WW protegee he will be moved to an IAG corporate role in Spain and then quietly dissappear

bhbloke

Wee Willie gave him the dreaded vote of confidence earlier, saying he still has full confidence in him.

In football terms this would mean a P45 within a week.

creampuff

Ahh BA; substandard hard product, substandard soft product and can't even run an IT system.

I still have to fly BA short haul twice a week, most weeks, as there is no choice living near Heathrow and flying domestic. I haven't flown BA long haul for a long time and I think it would be great if I never have to fly them again. The thought of actually buying a ticket on BA when there is a choice just makes me LOL! I even dumped my Amex and the 2-4-1, because I'd rather use more FF points to fly on other airlines than get a free (or rather cheap) seat with BA!

I formed this opinion about BA well before the IT outage. Seeing them actively try to penny pinch, avoid paying any passengers anything and seeing them actively waste passengers time rather than rebook them just makes me dislike BA even more. The best thing about this incident is now the general public is fully aware where they stand if anything goes wrong.

Bluebrummie2000

At some point 'wee willie' will save himself and sacrifice AC if brand perceptions and value do not recover. In any event, my guess for timing is that AC will be gone by the end of the financial year after oveseeing the post mortem and consequent restructuring, re-positioning, re-focusing of the PR, IT and customer service leadership...

Padmeister

What is really worrying is if it all does go to .... for BA who Willy get to take over from AC that is anybody's guess 🤔

Calchas

Where are you going? FlyBe now goes to ABZ and EDI from LHR

chrisboote

Internal whisper is that the Cranebank server centre data was three weeks out of date, which was only discovered when they tried to gracefully fall back

This prompted the rushed, botched, power restore at BoHo

There are questions that have yet to be answered - who powered off the UPS? How did that also take down the backup generator? Why was the Cranebank backup data not up to date? Why did no one notice? Who screwed up the BoHo restart?

Bluebrummie2000

To the point raised by Padmeister - from where will Willie find another, more acceptable puppet.... Alternatively, would anyone with the right level of premium global brand management experience want to work for Willie?

loosehead

Thanks for sharing, CB. I know we have to treat what you posted as an unconfirmed report, but this kind of scenario makes infinitely more sense to me, than the Telegraph's illogical version of events.

Ber2dca

This will all be a moot point when Chairman Corbyn installs a People's Commissar to run BA.