British Airways resolves IT system failure

British Airways resolves IT system failure

British Airways (BA) has confirmed that an IT system outage which affected multiple short-haul flights has been resolved.

The airline experienced an IT failure on August 7, 2019 which led to the cancellation of multiple flights from London airports.

The company released an update on the afternoon of the 7th, stating that the temporary systems issue had been resolved.

It apologised to its customers who were caught up in the disruption and made reference to how frustrating their experience must have been.

The company has since been able to send the vast majority of customers on their way, with most flights departing and returning to normal. However, it has warned that there may be some knock on operational disruption as a result of the issue.

The company has advised customers to check ba.com for the latest flight information before arriving at the airport.

Michael Cade, Senior Global Technologist, Veeam, commented on the issue: “Our reliance on technology has hit a point where it has an overwhelming influence on consumer’s trust in a business – and this IT failure is testament to the fact that businesses are now expected to provide uninterrupted access, protect consumer data and recover quickly should the worst happen.  

“British Airways is not alone, this is affecting businesses of all shapes and sizes. Our recent Cloud Data Management report showed that nearly three-quarters (73%) of businesses recognise that they still are still unable to meet users’ demands for uninterrupted access to applications and data. This gap is causing business-critical challenges, from damage to customer confidence and brand integrity, right through to losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds an hour.

“It doesn’t matter if loss or lack of access to data is caused by hardware failure, a cyberattack, or even an employee gone rogue. Customers will not care about what caused an issue; they only want to know if their data is protected and that they’re still able to use services and applications as normal, without interruption and that requires data availability.”

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