BA boss 'profusely' sorry for IT meltdown disrupting 75,000

British Airways' chief executive is "profusely" sorry for an IT meltdown he revealed has disrupted 75,000 passengers' flights.

Alex Cruz told Sky News the airline was "making some progress" towards getting their services back to normal on Monday following the computer outage, which he described as "a tragedy".

The airline boss denied claims from the GMB union the problems were down to BA cutting "hundreds of dedicated and loyal" IT staff and contracting the work out to India to save money .

Mr Cruz insisted those parties involved in the weekend's problems had "not been involved with any type of outsourcing in any foreign countries".

He added: "They've all been local issues around a local data centre who have been managed and fixed by local resources."

Mr Cruz said there was "no evidence whatsoever" a cyberattack was behind the computer problems.

He instead cited a "power surge" around 9.30am on Saturday (Shenzhen: 002291.SZ - news) morning for the "catastrophic effect" on all of BA's systems.

The IT troubles had led to no compromise of any passenger data or any concerns about access to the terror watchlist for flights, Mr Cruz said.

He revealed BA is operating more than 95% of its flights on Monday, with all of its Gatwick services and long-haul flights from Heathrow going ahead.

More than 90% of BA short-haul flights from Heathrow would also be operating, while more than two-thirds of passengers affected on Saturday and Sunday would make it to their final destination by the end of Monday.

Other passengers whose flights were disrupted over the weekend will have the option to re-book their flights for any time over the next six months.

Responding to the chaos that grounded scores of planes over the weekend, Mr Cruz said: "We do apologise profusely for the hardship that these customers of ours have had to go through.

"We know that there have been holidays interrupted and personal events that have been interrupted and people waiting in queues for a really long time.

"We absolutely profusely apologise for that and we are absolutely committed to provide and abide by the compensation rules that are currently in place."

Mr Cruz promised an "exhaustive investigation" into the meltdown, adding: "We're absolutely committed to finding the root causes of this particular event and we will make sure nothing like this happens to British Airways ever again."

Experts predict BA is facing a huge compensation bill, estimated at more than £100m, over the disruption.

Customers have been left queuing for hours in packed terminals over the last few days and some had to bed down on terminal floors on Saturday.

Many complained of scant information from staff.

:: Passengers describe airport pandemonium

Mr Cruz was shown a Sky News video of a honeymoon couple who had been stranded for three days at Heathrow, causing them to miss the start of their cruise holiday.

He said: "We are extremely sorry and what we will do is make up and follow absolutely our obligations and provide as much flexibility as we can to them and the rest of the passengers that have been affected."

The IT outage had a knock-on effect on BA services around the world, while passengers who did get onto flights from the UK reported arriving without luggage.

Video has emerged of a BA employee at Venice Airport threatening to call the police on a woman who asked about the policy on customers who do not have money to pay for hotel rooms.

Stacy Irish, who posted the footage on Twitter (Frankfurt: A1W6XZ - news) on 28 May, said: "I was told it has nothing to with BA if customers can't afford it. She (Munich: SOQ.MU - news) then said she would call the police."

Some experts expect the disruption to linger for several days, as planes and aircrew are returned to their positions and the backlog of passengers is cleared.