BA boss will not resign amid flight fiasco, fends off outsourcing claims

British Airways chief executive Alex Cruz has said he will not resign due to the ongoing flight chaos being experienced by the airline.

There was mass disruption at London Heathrow and Gatwick airports at the weekend after an IT system crash grounded a large number of BA flights, and the confusion has continued into Monday.

Cruz has had to fend off reports that the computer system crash came as a result of the replacement of a large number of employees in the UK, whose jobs were outsourced to India.

Speaking with the BBC on Monday, Cruz defended his own role in the disruption.

IAG's Spanish-listed shares had dropped 2.55% as of 15:11 BST.

"I don’t think it would make much use for me to resign at this particular point in time," Cruz said.

He added that there was no relation between any outsourcing BA's parent company IAG may have carried out in recent times.

"I can confirm that all the parties involved around this particular event have not been involved in any type of outsourcing in any foreign country," he said. "They have all been local issues around a local data centre."

The estimated cost of the scandal for BA is thought to be as much as £100m, with the majority of that to be put down to customer compensation.

With London stock markets closed on Monday due to the bank holiday, IAG's Spanish-listed shares had dropped 2.55% as of 15:11 BST.