British Airways on Saturday suffered a catastrophic IT outage that took down its system in 170 airports across 70 different countries over the weekend and has persisted for a third day. The impact of the incident, which began on Saturday, continued today, at least over 75,000 customers have been affected.
No fewer than 400 passengers of the airline from Nigeria were affected by the IT outage. They were stranded at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA), however, some of the passengers were eventually flown on Saturday by KLM Airlines while some were flown out bound to Heathrow by Virgin Atlantic on Sunday morning.
The CEO of British Airways, Alex Cruz, in a statement on Monday, stated that the there was an exceptional power surge that collapsed the IT systems, bringing down all flight, baggage and customer communication system. The power surge was so severe and strong that it rendered the back-up system ineffective.
The Airline was forced to cancel flights out of Gatwick and Heathrow airports, leaving thousands of passengers stranded. Some passengers took to Twitter to voice their frustrations. Some passengers sat in the plane on the tarmac for over four hours after landing.
Mr Cruz apologized profusely to travellers as the Airline said that its IT systems move closer to full operational capacity. BA also promised to honour its obligation under the EU compensation rules.
This is not the first time computer glitches and outages have plagued BA and other airlines in recent times.
