British Airways Chairman and CEO Sean Doyle has issued a video statement in which he warns customers of ongoing disruption following a power outage at Heathrow Airport.
In the video, he said BA had cancelled every short-haul flight and ‘the majority’ of long-haul flights that were scheduled to operate at Heathrow today.
“This is an unprecedented situation, and we have not seen a closure of Heathrow of this scale for many years. Unfortunately, it will have a huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days,” he added.
“We hope that power will be restored as soon as possible. But even when that does happen, this incident will have a substantial impact on our airline and customers for many days to come, with disruption to journeys expected over the coming days.”
BA has cancelled 670 flights, affecting around 107,000 passengers. Similar numbers are planned over the weekend.
“We have flight and cabin crew colleagues and planes that are currently at locations where we weren’t planning on them to be. This is because we had to divert flights that were in the air when it became clear we weren’t going to be able to land at Heathrow,” added Sean.
“Our crews are only legally allowable to operate for a certain number of hours over any given period of time, which adds further complexity into our planning. That means even if things do get back up and running soon, we will have the logistical issue of getting new crews out to operate those aircraft.
“In addition, our engineering and maintenance operation have also had no power. This is being addressed but is another example of the incredibly challenging situation we find ourselves in.”
Sean said BA has ‘put all available resources’ onto phone lines, and extended the calls centre opening times. Updates are also being put on its website and app.
“We will of course work at pace to get customers and colleagues to where they need to be as safely and as quickly as possible,” he added.
“I am sorry to everybody who’s experiencing this disruption and ask you for your understanding while we work to recover our operation from such a significant challenge which is complex to work through.
“Thank you to our customers for bearing with us and the thousands of our colleagues around the world for their hard work.”
