BA data firm denies human error caused delay chaos

British Airways' data firm has denied that last week's travel chaos was caused by human error in one of the airline's data centres.

Reports suggested on Friday that an employee had unintentionally switched off the power supply to BA’s computer system.

Tens of thousands of people were left stranded at airports in London last weekend in chaos that continued into the beginning of this week, with calls for CEO Alex Cruz to resign.

CBRE, the global data contracting firm, denied that any human error had been found.

"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," CBRE said in a statement.

The parent company of BA, International Airlines Group, said earlier this week that a loss of power to a key data centre caused a system shutdown, leading to a raft of cancellations and delays.

An email from Bill Francis, head of group IT at IAG, leaked to the Press Association, said: “This resulted in the total immediate loss of power to the facility, bypassing the backup generators and batteries.. It was turned back on in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion, which created physical damage to the system.”

BA is likely to face millions of pounds worth of costs arising from compensation payouts for last week’s system failure.