It was the hi-viz vest. In modern Britain, the cheap, optical yellow, breathable synthetic open vest with fat silver reflective stripes is the sign of the workperson and of the person who needs the safety of being seen. The person waving your airplane forward wears one. Traffic cops wear them. Cyclists. Lately, school kids herded by their teachers. But when the CEO of one of the world’s biggest airlines dons one for the cameras in order to explain that an IT failure is the reason tens of thousands of people are sleeping on yoga mats in conference rooms at Heathrow, the instant reaction is: “Asshole.” Sometimes the visual kills the apology before the CEO can even open his mouth.
Alex Cruz in vest of infamy.
By now, everyone’s heard about the “catastrophic” (their words) IT failure that cancelled British Airways flights all over the world last weekend. The effects were hardest felt here in London, where Friday night kicked off a holiday weekend. Of course, holiday weekends here are always accompanied by disaster, but normally it’s the weather. With temperatures predicted to be in the sunny 70s, people should have known something else had to go wrong. And on Saturday morning that something was the “catastrophic” failure of BA’s IT systems. A modern airline is pretty much non-functional in a situation like that: they can’t check people in, issue boarding passes, rebook frustrated passengers, or even send flights on their way.
If only someone in a vest would appear to us.
Reports from the ground indicate that BA personnel promptly disappeared, leaving passengers to search desperately for any scraps of information they could find. Those who had already passed security were stuck: the only way out normally is to board a plane, and planes weren’t flying. Plus, they’d generally need to go through passport control. So, all weekend on Twitter: pictures of giant queues of thousands of people stuck for many long hours trying to rebook their flights or get past passport control so they could get out and go somewhere else. The constant refrain: where are the BA staff? Why is there no information about what’s happening? Writing in the Guardian, thwarted passenger Dr. Philip Abraham called Heathrow Terminal 5 last weekend the “angriest place I’ve ever seen”.
Sometime on Saturday, BA’s CEO, Alex Cruz (“Spanish”, the Daily Mail helpfully headlined) donned the fateful vest and went on camera to say the following, in front of a room filled with people working at desks:
Hello. I am Alex Cruz, British Airways’ chief exec, and I’m here at an operations center near Heathrow. Today we have experienced a major IT system failure that is causing very severe disruption to our flight operations worldwide. All of our check-in and operational systems have been affected, and we have cancelled all our flights from Heathrow and Gatwick for today, so if you were due to fly with us this evening from Heathrow or Gatwick, please do not come to the airport. We are extremely sorry for the huge inconvenience this is causing our customers, and we understand how frustrating this must be, especially for families hoping to get away on holiday. I want to thank all of our customers for the great patience they have been showing today…. I’m really sorry we don’t have better news as yet, but I can assure you our teams are working as hard as they can to resolve this issue.
Where are our be-vested leaders?
When you’re trying to wrangle a one-year-old, your clean socks have vanished into the bowels of the airport, and even the queue to the exit is five hours long, apologies don’t cut it, particularly when they’re posted remotely to the airline’s website and Twitter account rather than issued in person on the ground by someone who follows up with practical help. Action is what you want to see, and the CEO should be out leading that charge. He should be working the terminal, handing out bottles of water and free food, ensuring that the least-abled passengers are assisted quickly, and deploying extra staff to help people find trains and hotel rooms. Had he been doing any of that, the vest would have been a sign of solidarity. Instead: tone-deaf.
Thanks for this report to Wendy M. Grossman, SorryWatch Senior Tennis Correspondent. SorryWatch likes to think that even in such circumstances, an apology could cut it. Although this one didn’t. The next day, May 28th, Cruz posted another message to would-be passengers. Slightly more practical information. Still nothing about improving their crisis response procedures. Same location, but he may have been reading the comments – he omitted the much-derided vest.
