British Air meltdown fuels outrage against tight-fisted airlines

Frankfurt

BRITISH Airways' epic meltdown over a busy holiday weekend further fanned public outrage of an industry infamous for its focus on cost cuts over customer service, leaving the UK carrier scrambling to explain how a local computer outage could lead to thousands of stranded passengers.

Amid United Airlines' dragging fiasco, mass cancellations at Delta Air Lines and US concerns about terrorists using laptops to down planes, the global aviation industry hardly needed another blow. But then on Saturday morning, a brief power surge knocked out British Airways' communications systems, grounding the carrier's entire London operations, leading to days of chaos and putting the new chief executive officer in the hot seat. A full flight schedule was expected to resume on Tuesday.