Nothing infuriates travellers quite like flight disruptions, so the outrage that poured out over social media when a power outage grounded tens of thousands of British Airways flights over the second May bank holiday weekend was no surprise. Despite this, management at parent company International Consolidated Airlines (IAG) tried hard to brush the incident aside in these half-year results. Chief executive Willie Walsh briefly mentioned that pre-exceptional non-fuel unit costs rose at constant currency during the period, which includes the financial impact of the British Airways outage. Handling, catering, and other operating costs increased by 4.6 per cent during the period to €1.4bn (£1.3bn), which includes €65m of additional compensation fees and baggage claims related to the disruption in May.
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