British Airways staff ‘spat at and suffered homophobic abuse’ after IT system failure

Workers were forced to watch ‘disabled passengers and babies sleep at the airport,’ claims union

Passengers queue at the Arrivals entrance of Heathrow Airport T5 (PA)

British Airways staff were “spat at”, “suffered homophobic abuse” and had to watch “as disabled customers and babies were forced to sleep in the airport” during the airline’s recent system failure, claims a major union.

GMB, which represents numerous BA employees, wrote an open letter to the airline’s CEO, Sean Doyle, laying the blame for the weekend’s disruption on the decision to outsource IT systems to India in 2016.

“It didn’t have to be this way – but underinvestment in the business, plus the decision in 2016 to make hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsource the work to India are taking their toll,” said Nadine Houghton, GMB national officer.

“Moral [sic] is at an all-time low after BA’s shameful attack on workers during the pandemic.

“Our experienced, dedicated and hardworking members fear this is now just the tip of the iceberg for the airline, with a summer of chaos now a very real prospect.”

Thousands of BA passengers’ flights were cancelled or delayed on 25, 26 and 27 February after “significant technical challenges” affected “multiple British Airways systems”, according to the carrier.

All short-haul BA flights from Heathrow were canned on Saturday, while everything from the passenger-facing website and app to the essential departure control systems was impacted by the system failure.

“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience our customers have experienced and thank them for their patience and understanding during this incredibly frustrating period. We’re doing everything we can to get them to their destinations as soon as possible,” a British Airways spokesperson told The Independent.

Passengers faced a similar meltdown two years ago and in 2017 – when a bank holiday weekend’s worth of flights were wiped out by a system outage that apparently happened during some routine IT maintenance.

GMB’s Ms Houghton invited Mr Doyle “to walk a mile in [staff’s] shoes and hear directly about the lasting impact BA's failed fire and rehire policy is having on the very members you are now relying on to rebuild the airline.”