A power supply unit at the centre of last weekend’s British Airways fiasco was in perfect working order but was deliberately shut down in a catastrophic blunder, The Times has learnt.
An investigation into the incident, which disrupted the travel plans of 75,000 passengers, is likely to centre on human error rather than any equipment failure at BA, it emerged.
The disclosure was made as the airline was accused of ignoring warnings about outsourcing work, cost-cutting and the loss of experienced skilled staff. One BA worker said that 600 IT jobs had been lost since March last year.
At least 700 flights were cancelled at Heathrow and Gatwick over the bank holiday weekend when the sudden loss of power to BA’s two main data centres led to the loss of all information about flights, baggage and passengers.
It caused three days of disruption and could lead to BA paying compensation of up to £150 million.
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The incident is thought to concern an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) which delivers a smooth flow of power from the mains, with a fall-back to a battery back-up and a diesel generator.
This week BA’s parent company, International Airlines Group (IAG) admitted that the supply to Boadicea House, a data centre, was temporarily lost. An internal investigation found that the UPS, believed to have been supplied by Hitec Power Protection, was functioning correctly at the time.
One BA source said it was rumoured that a contractor doing maintenance inadvertently switched the supply off, although this has not been confirmed.
An internal email from Bill Francis, head of group IT at IAG, appeared to confirm this version of events. The email, leaked to the Press Association, said: “This resulted in the total immediate loss of power to the facility, bypassing the backup generators and batteries . . . It was turned back on in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion, which created physical damage to the system.”
Last night BA was accused of giving passengers incorrect information about how to claim compensation.
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The Association of British Insurers said that the airline was complicating the process by asking customers to claim on their travel insurance in the first instance, which could affect travellers with an excess on their policy. “Any cover available under travel insurance will usually kick in only if compensation is not available from any other source,” the ABI told the Financial Times. BA pledged to update the wording on the claims page of its website.