british airways

British Airways cancels 1,500 more flights

The wave of cancellations made over the past weeks will affect tens of thousands hoping to jet off this summer from Heathrow and Gatwick.

The industry has been struggling with staff shortages as demand for air travel rebounds.

British Airways had already removed 10% of scheduled flights between April and October, but said that "regrettably" more reductions were needed.

British Airways fined £20m over data breach

The breach took place in 2018 and affected both personal and credit card data.

The fine is considerably smaller than the £183m that the ICO originally said it intended to issue back in 2019.

It said "the economic impact of Covid-19" had been taken into account.

However, it is still the largest penalty issued by the ICO to date.

The incident took place when BA's systems were compromised by its attackers, and then modified to harvest customers' details as they were input.

BA expected to suspend 36,000 staff

The airline, which grounded much of its fleet due to the coronavirus crisis, has been negotiating with the Unite union for more than a week.

The two sides have reached a broad deal but are yet to sign on some details.

The agreement means that up to 80% of BA cabin crew, ground staff, engineers and those working at head office will have their jobs suspended but no staff are expected to be made redundant.

The decision will affect all staff at Gatwick and London City Airport after the airline suspended its operations at both locations until the crisis is over.

Coronavirus: British Airways suspends all Gatwick flights

It follows EasyJet's suspension of flights after the government advised against all but essential travel.

British Airways told staff it was facing a challenging market environment in "unprecedented circumstances", according to an email seen by the BBC.

The airline said it would contact customers to "discuss their options".

"Due to the considerable restrictions and challenging market environment, like many other airlines, we will temporarily suspend our flying schedule at Gatwick," the airline said in a statement.

British Airways to resume direct flights to Iran

It will be the first direct flight by a UK carrier to Iran since 2012, when the route became commercially unviable because relations had broken down.

It follows the lifting of some sanctions against Iran in January and the re-opening of the British embassy in the Iranian capital in 2015.

BA said it will run flights six days a week from London Heathrow.

The Boeing 777 will depart just after 21:00 BST on Thursday.

Sanctions

British Airways passenger screams 'I have a bomb' during flight

Steve Penk's daughter Natalie, 27, said she feared for her life after a man began running up and down the aisles, shouting and spitting at staff, during a flight from Heathrow to Dubai.

After 45 minutes, the man was finally restrained and handcuffed, as he yelled: "I have a bomb and you're all going to die".

Plane that caught fire in Vegas was accelerating for takeoff

The blaze Tuesday sent smoke pouring from an engine and led passengers and crew to flee down emergency slides. The plane was leaving for a 10-hour flight to London with 157 passengers aboard.

Clark County Fire officials said at a news conference they had fire engines rolling within 45 seconds of a 4:13 p.m. call from the tower. They had water on the fire within two minutes, and by 4:18 it was out.