Last weekend, British Airways passengers were thrown into chaos when systems went down. The firm managing the airline's data centre has now announced that the problem was not caused by a human error.
Reports have claimed the failure was due to a maintenance worker who had accidentally switched off the power supply. However CBRE, which manages the company's data, said the claims were 'not founded in fact'.
Crowds gathered in terminals. Credit: PA
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A spokesperson told the Guardian: "We are the manager of the facility for our client BA and fully support its investigation. No determination has been made yet regarding the cause of this incident. Any speculation to the contrary is not founded in fact."
The airline added that the investigation was still ongoing.
An internal email sent by the head of IT from BA's parent company, IAG, stated an 'uninterruptable power supply' was over-ridden, resulting in a 'total immediate loss of power' to the facility.
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Although the outage only lasted 15 minutes, it resulted in 75,000 people left stranded as people couldn't check in, planes were grounded and baggage couldn't be loaded.
Passengers were photographed using yoga mats as mattresses and hand-luggage as pillows in the airport as they waited for updates on when they would be able to fly.
The airline wasn't running a full schedule until Tuesday and even then, many passengers were still without their luggage.
It's estimated it could cost BA around £150million in compensation. The company is currently in discussions with insurers to work out who is liable to pay out the compensation.
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BA has promised it would pay out for 'disruption expenses', including meals, additional hotels and phone calls.
A source told the Sun that the company could still be feeling the effects for months to come.
They said: "It's very much human error that's to blame. It's not over yet."
According to the Daily Mail, the backup power sources failed, including a generator, which has led many to ask how this could happen at a company as big as BA.
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Sources: Guardian, The Sun, Daily Mail
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