BA CEO apologizes for lengthy delays

Alex Cruz, CEO of British Airways, is accepting all the blame for the global IT failure, which left so many flyers stranded in British airports.

He is sorry for the massive IT failure that stranded so many passengers.

“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,” he said at a press conference Monday, May 29. “We absolutely, profusely apologize for that and we absolutely are committed to provide and abide by the compensation rules that are currently in place.”

Those “compensation rules” include offering a free re-booking any time within six months. That can hardly compensate for once-in-a-lifetime travel plans being ruined.

Daniel Martin and his new wife had their honeymoon interrupted.

“We arrived here late Saturday morning and all the flights were canceled,” Dan Martin said Monday morning. “We’ve been here for three days, we were supposed to be here for four hours. We missed our ship, our cruise ship in Rome. We already were booked for two different flights, they canceled them too. We are flying today—we have no luggage and we don’t know when we are going to get our luggage.”

CEO Alex Cruz said 75,00 passengers were stranded. Two-thirds of them would reach their destinations Monday night, May 29, he claimed.

BA is offering free flights for everyone else affected.

For those who missed a wedding or a graduation, what good is that?

British Airlines was still canceling flights Monday, May 29, which is a U.K. holiday and usually sees a high volume of air travelers.

BA’s sister airlines, Iberia and Air Nostrum, also had to cancel flights Monday, adding to the number of irate flyers.