British Airways is suing a ground handling company at Chicago O’Hare, alleging that a worker who was high on marijuana caused more than $228,000 worth of damage to one of the airline’s Boeing 747 Jumbojets.
The incident occurred back in September 2019, but after six years of trying to get the ground handling company to pay for the damage, BA’s attorneys have now filed a lawsuit in a New York district court.
According to a civil complaint filed last week, the accident occurred while one of BA’s now-retired Boeing 747-400s was undergoing some minor maintenance at Chicago O’Hare before it was due to fly back to London Heathrow as flight BA294.
British Airways uses a third-party ground handling company in Chicago called Ground Services International, or GSI for short, which is a subsidiary of the Dubai-based aviation services company Dnata.
While GSI was servicing the aircraft ahead of its flight back to London, British Airways alleges that one of its workers drove a set of mobile airstairs into the right-hand wing, causing “significant damage.”
To make matters worse, the worker then pretended that nothing had happened and failed to promptly alert their managers to the “obvious and noticeable” damage to the plane.
While there’s no reason to believe that there was any malice involved, British Airways claims the worker later tested positive for Cannabis.
British Airways was forced to ground the aircraft and cancel the flight, incurring significant costs to provide overnight hotel accommodation for the disrupted passengers, reroute them on alternative flights, and pay out compensation.
The repairs and other expenses are estimated to have cost British Airways $228,028.
Following the incident, British Airways asked GSI to indemnify the accident and get its insurers to cover the costs borne by the airline. Years later, GSI is yet to indemnify the accident, and its insurers have refused to compensate British Airways for the damage caused to the plane.
Along with claims for the repair costs, as well as expenses in relation to looking after the disrupted passengers, British Airways is also suing GSI for “loss of revenue and reduced fleet capacity,” hangar and towing fees, and now the costs of bringing in attorneys to deal with the case.
BA’s legal department isn’t afraid to seek damages in court, as was seen earlier this year when the airline sued the operator of Boston Logan airport for damage sustained to an Airbus A380 due to a faulty piece of ground servicing equipment.
British Airways sued Masspot for around $293,000 after the superjumbo’s electrical systems were knocked out when it was plugged into a ground power unit supplied by the airport operator.
The plane’s electrical systems were badly damaged, and the plane had to be grounded while significant repairs were undertaken. British Airways demanded compensation from Massport, but when the two sides failed to reach an amicable resolution, BA called in its attorneys.
Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Massport managed to reach an out-of-court settlement with British Airways.
What happened to BA’s fleet of Boeing 747-400s
In early 2020, British Airways was the largest operator of the Boeing 747 in the world – affectionately known as the Queen of the Skies.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the airline quickly grounded the quad-engined gas guzzlers, and it wasn’t long before rumors of their demise started to circulate.
Sadly, in July 2020, British Airways confirmed that it would permanently retire its entire fleet of 30 Boeing 747s. The last two planes formally left the BA fleet in October 2020, marked by a rare dual takeoff from London Heathrow Airport.
Would the 747s still be flying today if it weren’t for the pandemic?
British Airways had planned to slowly retire its fleet of Boeing 747s from 2019, with the last plane leaving its fleet in 2024. That timeline, however, was reliant on British Airways taking delivery of the yet-to-be-certified Boeing 777X.
Given the fact that the Boeing 777X isn’t due to join BA’s fleet until next year at the very earliest, and ongoing issues with Boeing 787 Dreamliner engines, it’s likely that if it hadn’t been for the pandemic, the 747s would still be flying today.
British Airways wasn’t the only carrier to have hastily scrapped aircraft under the assumption that air travel would be impacted by the pandemic for many years. All of these airlines were miserably wrong in their predictions and have struggled to rebuild capacity in the years since.
Haha! I know it’s just an innocent typo, nothing shady, we’ve all done it. But the fact the BOS incident references ‘Masspot’ given the context of the ORD incident truly made me laugh out loud! 🙂
“While there’s no reason to believe that there was any malice involved, British Airways claims the worker later tested positive for Cannabis.”
This is the America we live in now. Cannabis “FOR MEDICAL REASONS” has turned about 50% of this country into complete morons. And the greedy politicians don’t care except for the tax money. America has declined a lot over the last 40 or 50 years. How low can it go? I estimate that 25% – 50% of people are on some kind of medication or stoned, some even when they are driving their cars. This is why insurance rates have skyrocketed in places that have legal cannabis (like Colorado).