Fined £ 183 million for data breach last year
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48905907

British Airways says it is facing a record fine of £183m for last year's breach of its security systems. The airline, owned by IAG, says it was "surprised and disappointed" by the penalty from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). At the time, BA said hackers had carried out a "sophisticated, malicious criminal attack" on its website.

The ICO said it was the biggest penalty it had ever handed out and the first to be made public under new rules The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force last year and was the biggest shake-up to data privacy in 20 years.

The penalty imposed on BA is the first one to be made public since those rules were introduced and amounts to 1.5% of its worldwide turnover in 2017, less than the possible maximum of 4%. Until now, the biggest penalty was £500,000, imposed on Facebook for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. That was the maximum allowed under the old data protection rules that applied before GDPR.

BA has 28 days to appeal. Willie Walsh, chief executive of IAG, said British Airways would be making representations to the ICO. "We intend to take all appropriate steps to defend the airline's position vigorously, including making any necessary appeals," he said. BA has previously said approximately 380,000 transactions were affected, but the stolen data did not include travel or passport details.

The information included names, email addresses, credit card information such as credit card numbers, expiration dates and the three-digit CVV code found on the back of credit cards, although BA has said it did not store CVV numbers. The incident was first disclosed on 6 September 2018.

Alex Cruz, British Airways' chairman and chief executive, said: "We are surprised and disappointed in this initial finding from the ICO. "British Airways responded quickly to a criminal act to steal customers' data. We have found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to the theft.

"We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this event caused."

I have to disagree with Alex Cruz stolen data has not led to fraud/fraudulent activity. Recently, I had a flurry of fraudulent transactions on a UK credit card that had been used to book flights via the BA website at the time of the data breach. None of my other UK cards or my Spanish, none of which I had used with BA, have been subject to similar fraudulent activity. From this, I can only draw the conclusion that the BA data breach was the source of the data used.

Did you notify BA of your conclusion ?

Cruz didn't say that there had been no fraudulent activity, but that BA hadn't found any evidence of any.

I see this as a shot across a lot of people's bows using the new penalties - everyone has heard of BA and that fine is eye watering to a lot of outfits

It'll get a lot of attention - which is the idea I suppose

It would be extremely difficult for an individual to prove that BA's website issue led to fraud or provide anything that is evidence of this incident being a cause - and BA's lawyers are well aware of this.
One would have to show audit logs that a) the gang stole the details of the card in question (not just that they had the means to do so), b) that the card in question is in the audit log showing which card details were then sold on and c) that the next gang were the ones who used the card to make an unauthorised purchase.

Any gang capable of hacking BA will most certainly have known to cover their tracks and take precautions against any data snooping (ie maximum encryption everywhere). Audit logs proving the transfer of card details will probably not exist; if they exist they will be encrypted; even if one has the password, one would need to go through Interpol to obtain the logs - and diplomatic relations at the moment may prevent this

As a private individual, you can complain to BA, but the PR people will not budge easily and it will be very difficult to prove definitively any blame against BA - the most one can do is show BA were lax in their handling of personal data and throw the GDPR book against them

British Airways pilots have voted in favour of strike action in a dispute over pay, threatening a walkout over the key summer holiday period.The British Airline Pilots' Association (Balpa) said 93% of its members had voted in favour of industrial action.

The union said it did not yet have any dates for a potential strike, adding it hopes the dispute can be resolved.

A strike would be likely to cause severe disruption, as Balpa represents about 90% of the airline's pilots.


BBC News

talking about August 6th for kic

Question is will BA settle quickly to minimize damage or decide to slug it out?

Round One
Headline reads: BA loses legal action against pilot strikes

BA still not learnt their lesson about their truly awful IT set up. More flights canx and delyaed due to a 'glitch'. They need to bite the bullet and spend money to fix this. They have to learn that they are an IT company who operate aircraft.

Looks like LH group will go after BA's America business as they will lauch several new routes next summer from FRA, MUC and ZRH. We'll see if there might be any impact on BA's LHR flights.
https://newsroom.lufthansagroup.com/...f-626f45321874

https://swiss.newsmarket.com/english...b-9f0bf8ff265c

The people who do the IT for BA who are based in India - are they employees of a BA contolled company, or do they work instead for one of the outsourcing providers instead ? An employee of (for example) Infosys cares far more about what Infosys wants - and has little or no incentive to make an effort to help BA beyond what is on the written contract agreed between their employer (Infosys) and BA

i think its outsourced .ie. non directly employed labour

Yes, I know they outsourced and it has been discussed in various places. They have failed to understand - as countless big companies have - what has changed. They see the IT as an adjunct when it is central. I worked in telecommunications and IT for 27 years starting in 1978. I saw how companies came to rely more on their systems but treated the staff as if they were still doing 'some batch processing overnight'. I even recall one Data Centre manager at a plc you would all know (not BA), who did not like having PCs in his centre as they were not proper computers.

And this is news?

It takes time to know a new machine. Better safe than sorry. Everyone wants everything Yesterday.

They've been in the A350 sim since at least February. They 'know' the machine inside out.

Spot on! It's click bait.

I'm not so sure. An aircraft is pulled from service following an in-flight incident and fails to operate two subsequent planned rotations while checks are carried out.

Yes, the fact that it's a new type in the fleet makes it of additional interest, but I think we'd have heard about it anyway, regardless of the aircraft involved.

772 Refurbishment
 

They are all due for refurbishment. However, the LGW fleet is first in line. So once they are complete the (majority of time) LHR based frames will follow. There's been various rumours of the majority YMM* fleet to be converted to 3 class only, with 10-abreast in World Traveller config and new Club World at LHR.

The 4 class 777s are expected to have first config reduced to 8 seats and new Club World installed also from LHR.

It's currently a very very slow process but much if it has been taking place during other checks using a 3rd party. Hopefully space in-house will be freed up to help speed up the process for consistency.

Another questionnaire
 

By email - and it looks exactly the same as the one they sent 3 months ago..... complete waste of time as you can never actually fill in anything useful in the way of real issues

Such as Catering, seats, pricing, cancellations etc etc :(

I was lead to believe that some, if not all B787-10s would be in a 4 class config as they will be flying many East Coast USA and Middle Eastern routes where First is in demand . The 777-9's are also to be 4-class configured with 325 seats as things stand.

All the A350-1000s are to be 3-class .

As for the A380, with the new "8 seat" First cabins being rolled out across the rest of BAs fleet, this could help make the A380 more efficient by better use of its cabin pace and increasing seat capacity. The 8 seat First cabin could be moved to the forward upper-deck leaving the larger downstairs section for World Traveller/World Traveller Plus. The remaining upper-deck could be the new Club World seats.

G-YMMC has already been refurbished internally to 32/48/252, bringing it in line with the Gatwick VII series aircraft refurbished last year with Panasonic IFE and 10 abreast in World Traveller. YMM A/B/D/E/F are to follow this winter. YMMR onwards will be done after this winter.

The reduction is F is no surprise. Once C reached the Flat Bed and enclosed pod, then Firt has to offer a LOT more in this day and age.

I used to occasionally come across people who'd travel in First but it's several years since that happened.

As C now offers everything you used to get in F only 5 years ago why pay the extra?