As British Airways continues to recover from the unprecedented closure of Heathrow Airport last Friday, the carrier is now offering cabin crew double the normal overtime incentive pay to encourage staffers to give up their days off.
Given the fact that British Airways is, by far, the largest airline to operate out of Heathrow, it’s no surprise that the carrier might face more challenges recovering from Friday’s electricity supply issues than other carriers.
Remarkably, British Airways has, so far, at least, done a pretty good job at getting its massive global operations back to normal. By Saturday, the airline operated nearly 90% of its regular schedule and by yesterday, British Airways was operating a near normal operation.
Bosses are, however, concerned that problems could arise because cabin crew and pilots had their schedules messed up as a result of the disruption on Friday, with aircrew diverted to alternative airports and hundreds stuck overseas.
A mere 24 delay has knock-on effects on aircrew schedules, which aren’t necessarily obvious until several days later when legally required rest periods start to kick in.
While BA had enough crew to operate flights over the weekend, the fear is that scheduling challenges could be felt in the coming days so the airline is trying to encourage aircrew to give up their days off for incentive pay.
The airline initially offered its usual overtime pay rates and then, on Sunday evening, doubled the incentive pay to as much as £300 (US $388), in addition to normal pay rates and per diems.
The National Grid, which operates the electricity substation that was badly damaged by a massive blaze last Thursday night, now says that Heathrow Airport still had power available and that a complete shutdown of the fourth busiest airport in the world wasn’t necessary.
While an investigation into the cause of the massive fire is still underway, National Grid CEO John Pettigrew has told British media that two other electricity substations close to Heathrow were still operational and capable to supply the airport with enough power to keep the airfield running.
Heathrow is under increasing pressure to explain the apparent lack of resilience that resulted in the ‘unique’ decision to shut down the entire airport for nearly a full day.
The airport has, however, defended its decision that it took time to reallocate the power supply and restart numerous safety-critical systems that had been affected by the initial loss of power.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has warned hundreds of thousands of passengers who were impacted by the closure that they are likely not to be eligible for compensation under Britain’s version of EC261 regulations.
The CAA says the fire is “likely to be viewed as extraordinary circumstances,” which is a clause that allows airlines to avoid paying compensation for significantly delayed or canceled flights.
In a statement, the CAA said that passengers were still welcome to make claims for compensation and, if necessary, it would be left to the courts to decide whether last Friday’s shutdown was an “extraordinary circumstance” or not.
