01/06/2017 London News

The Head of British Airways' parent company, IAG,

has defended the airline's handling of a computer failure that disrupted

flights at Gatwick and Heathrow over the bank holiday weekend.

Willie Walsh, who used to run BA, says an investigation is underway

glitch, that saw tens of thousands of passengers delayed or stranded.

The BBC's Transport Correspondent Richard Westcott reports.

Wish you were here - it wasn't a great start

to the holidays for thousands of British Airways passengers.

A computer meltdown caused chaos across the weekend.

Five days on and the boss of the group that owns BA,

Willie Walsh, has defended the way that the company handled the crisis.

I think the team at British Airways under the leadership of Alex

has done everything possible to get British Airways back flying at full

We quickly apologised to any of our customers

Those words might not sit well with customers who often complained

about the lack of information and help that they got

during the crisis, another complaint was the minimal detail

It was a problem caused by the failure of electrical

We understand what happened, we're still investigating why it

happened and that investigation will take some time.

Blaming it on a power surge has raised eyebrows

Burt Craven helped design and help run easyJet's system for many years.

What is unconvincing about the narrative

is that the sequence of events isn't clear, where and why did

Why did it have such a devastating effect on systems that are supposed

to be well shielded against these kinds of events?

Why did it take so long to recover the systems?

How many different systems were affected?

To what extent was human error or human response part

of the solution or part of the problem?

They need to work out what went wrong because of the speed

So it all started in a building near Heathrow Airport

but within hours it had spread to 170 different airports

in 70 different countries around the world.

75,000 BA customers were affected and five days on,

there are still people on holiday who don't have their bags.

The BBC's learned that senior company figures will now push

for an independent inquiry into why the computers collapsed

and why the back up system simply didn't work.

With a week to go until we head to the polls -

there are suggestions that the Conservatives have been

Our Political Correspondent Karl Mercer is here with more.

What do we know? We know over the weeks of the campaign, the poll

margins are getting closer, here in London there is a poll from the

Queen Mary University, London. Saying that Labour are 17 points

ahead in the capital. That Labour are on 50%, the Conservatives on

33%. A huge margin if you look back at the polling in March, Labour were

three points ahead. That lead extended over the last two weeks to

17 points so. Big stuff. Also, interestingly, part of the poll

asked who would you prefer to be the Prime Minister, Jeremy Corbyn for

the first time in the polls has come out on top, 37-34 against Theresa

May. So really interesting results in London. Why has this changed?

Maybe a couple of reasons, Labour has become more, London has become

more of a Labour city. 45 of the MPs, of 73 are labour. That may

play. But perhaps as London is a younger city than the rest of the

UK. How might it play out? Labour would have gone into the election

thinking that they could probably lose five or six seats but if the

poll is fulfilling the numbers they could pick up seats in Croydon, in

Kingston and Twickenham. So interesting results nor London that

we are not seeing repeated anywhere else in the country. But it is a

poll. The important one is next Thursday.

Definitely is. Thank you very much.

London has been named the credit card capital of the UK -

with many Londoners using plastic simply to cover the cost

A new report says young people who rent are most at risk of falling

New cars, big ticket purchases or even household bills.

London life is expensive nowadays and more and more of us

are turning to credit cards, sometimes just to make ends meet.

Billy has a good job which pays well but his living costs -

rent, travel, bills food, all add up.

He now has several thousand and pounds all on credit cards.

Originally I got them as a safety net as a back up just in case

But you just find yourself going to your credit card more

and more because you just can't afford to live here.

Everything is so expensive and rent is crazy.

So I find myself, I could be running out of money by the end of the week

and I turn to my credit card every week.

Billy is part of a new generation on YERNS.

They are more likely to own a credit card than anyone else

and the majority live in London in areas like the City.

They've helped Britain amass a staggering 66 billion

They've helped Britain amass a staggering 66.7 billion

Some of it reflects what is going on in the economy.

Stagnating wages and rising cost of living.

But of course if someone is building up a large amount

of unsecured credit, then that might not be sustainable

and they could be storing up problems for the future.

One charity offering debt advice says the average person coming

They believe the companies themselves should be doing more.

We think that what they could be doing is increasing the very low

minimum repayment levels and we think that credit card

companies should be doing more about lending to people

So people should only be able to borrow over a reasonable period,

so it prevents short-term credit card borrowing becoming

The UK cards Association said they remained committed to helping

But the sheer number of apparently persistent debt --

With you but the sheer number of apparently persistent dead

relying on plastic just to get by is fuelling concerns

that our credit culture is spiralling out of control.

Does London face a tough new competitor?

Well the facts that 1,000 jobs will soon move away

This is the new HSBC building, they are moving 1,000 jobs

It's a ?200 million investment and it will be the bank's

Not surprisingly, Birmingham thinks this is a bit of a coup.

They are encouraging Londoners and the global workforce

from around the world to move here as much as possible.

Birmingham is saying to London businesses: We've changed from how

ARCHIVE: The bullring has been the Birmingham shopping centre

There has now been a building and investment boom and the game

changer for the City and perhaps for London, may be this.

Once HS2 is built in 2026 you can get to the capital

city within 46 minutes, that is a shorter length of time

than going from one of the outer zones from the London Underground

This office space opened in Birmingham, employing 250 people

in software services but the same company has cut its space in London.

When you think about the square foot per prime real estate in London

it is 50% more expensive here than it is in Birmingham.

Lucy is a graduate employeee but she chose not to start

Rent in London is double the price, so it is about ?800.

And John, who manages this bar, used to live in Finsbury Park.

He left London a year ago and doesn't miss it.

I found it much too hectic, even if I could afford to live there.

I really like the pace of life in Birmingham.

And I guess the world is not all about London.

London is not losing out to other cities yet, we don't see

But for some it seems Birmingham does offer a better life and soon

That's it for tonight. Now I hand you over to Louise with the weather

forecast. Well it will be another mild one

tomorrow. Hardly a cloud in the sky to start with but this little fella

could be the fly in the ointment later on in the day, a few thundery

downpours are possible. We start with a clear sky. Then a few sharp

downpours, the weather warnings have been issued. Some of them could be

really severe indeed. 27 Celsius is likely over the north of London,

that is 80 Fahrenheit and the temperatures hot and sultry. But a

fresher feel into Saturday. A good deal of sunshine for the start of

the weekend but a noticeable difference in the feel of things

with the temperatures at about 21 Celsius. Here is the outlook and

more rain to Celsius. Here is the outlook and

more rain to come on Monday. Take care.

Good evening a huge contrast in the look and the feel of the whether or

not across England today. Lots of lovely sunshine but for

Scotland and Northern Ireland, grey with outbreaks of rain, although

this song thrush does not look like it is minding the rain. Here is the

satellite picture. There is a swirl of