Denis Fischbacher-Smith, Research Chair in Risk and ResilienceOne of the University of Glasgow's leading academics was among the hundreds of thousands of British Airways passengers stranded at the weekend after the airline's IT melt-down.

Now he has published some analysis and reflections the airline might find useful. 

Professor ‌Denis Fischbacher-Smith is Research Chair in Risk and Resilience at the University. He used his hours of waiting for information at Heathrow to good effect, penning an article about the crisis which - within hours - had been published by The Conversation,  the independent, not-for-profit media outlet that uses content sourced from the academic and research community.

Denis said: "For an academic who has spent more than 30 years researching organisational crises it was something of an odd experience to be in the middle of the British Airways IT foul-up on Saturday. And it provided a textbook example of how organisational systems need backup and effective communications if chaos is to be avoided when they fail.

Lightning strike

"I started my journey in the morning in Copenhagen, with no reported issues from the airline, and the first mention of a problem came close to the end of the flight as the pilot announced that we were being delayed on the way into Heathrow. This was explained as being a result of thunderstorms taking place in the south east of England.

"After more than 20 minutes of circling over the North Sea, we were told the delays were a result of congestion due to the storm. On landing, however, passengers were told that there had been a lightning strike which had resulted in a catastrophic failure of the communications system at Heathrow. The pilot said he could not contact BA ground staff to find out which gate to head for."

Denis goes on to describe how his aircraft sat on the taxiway for forty minutes until contact could be made. He said: "This was the first indication that passengers on the plane had that the problem wasn’t a temporary loss of communications." He concludes his article by suggesting that organisations need to overcome the barriers to learning that can damage the ability to cope with a crisis. He says: "A failure to do so can be hugely damaging, as BA is now discovering."

Read Denis's artice at The Conversation

First published: 30 May 2017

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