After IT outage, British Airways union blames outsourced IT jobs in India for problem

NEW DELHI: A day after an unprecedented IT outage forced British Airways to cancel all its flights at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, a union of the airline has upped the ante against Indian tech companies to whom the job was outsourced. “BA’s disastrous computer systems failure is another example of the shortcomings of BA IT systems since they made a number of staff redundant, and outsourced their work to India in 2016, GMB, the union for aviation workers, on said on Sunday.
The union’s website termed the outage as “disastrous computer failure (that) could have been avoided” and “slammed BA over… failure that has left Heathrow at a standstill and passengers stranded.”
The website quotes Mick Rix, GMB national officer for aviation, saying: “We can only feel genuinely sorry for the tens of thousands of passengers who are stranded at airports and face having their travel plans and holidays ruined. This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India. BA have made substantial profits in for a number of years, and many viewed the company’s actions of being just plain greedy”.
GMB website says the union had on February 29, 2016, protested against BA outsourcing IT jobs. The website quotes Mick Rix saying then a march was held “in protest at the company plans to outsource and offshore work to (one of the biggest IT majors in India).” “The affected job losses at Heathrow in West London is around 700 people and around 100 in New Castle and other locations.”