Business Continuity and Crisis Management

Name: University: Course: Tutor: Date: British Air ways use of its Business Continuity Plan during the Icelandic April 2010 volcanic eruption Background information about the organisation The British Airways plc (BA) is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom it has its base at the Waterside where it is also headquartered, waterside is near its main hub at the London Heathrow Airport. British Airways operates its second hub at the Gatwick Airport and it has a third hub, served through one of its fully owned subsidiary, British Airways CityFlyer, at the London City Airport. The British Airways is one of the largest airlines in the United Kingdom based on the fleet size, international flights and the international destinations. This is a full service global airline; the airline flies to and from the centrally located airports and offers numerous flights around the world. Background information about the crisis The Icelandic April 2010 volcanic eruption had great impacts on the climatic conditions in Europe, it involved physical destructions to property around Iceland but the air disruption was widespread, a scenario which led to disruption in the air travel, this led to the search for the alternate means which required the remote work capabilities and the modifications to the logistics. It affected many businesses because most of them do not have the plans for the disruptions which are caused by the volcanic ash eruptions. Lamb (1995) explained that the data compiled from the geologists and the weather forecasting stations show that globally almost 20 or more volcanoes are active at any given time. According to the vulcanological standards, the Icelandic (Eyjafjallajokull) volcano eruption was of a comparatively smaller scale. It has been noted that the increasing globalization and the interconnection has the implications that the business operations will be at the risk of disruptions caused by the volcanic and other related hazards frequently, although there has been no official predictions citing the increase in the frequency of occurrence of the volcanic eruptions. The impacts caused the volcanic ash cloud and its duration are not predictable, the Icelandic event in the in 2010 was surrounded by many circumstances which included a combination of vulcanology, the geographic location, the presence of the glacier above the volcano and winds which brought the worst scenario which saw the air traffic in the region shut down for some time. Sometimes even the worse scenario can be caused especially when the eruption of a volcano triggers the eruption of other volcanoes that are nearby as was in the past case 2000 years ago when the smaller Eyjallajokull volcano erupted which caused the Katla volcano to also erupt just shortly after. During the above event when the Icelandic glacier covered Eyjafjallajokull volcano erupted, it spewed the volcanic ash into the atmosphere, as a result the local response was urgent and frightening, the people in the surroundings had less than a half an hour to vacate the place. The air traffic across Scandinavia, western parts of Europe and the united kingdom came to a standstill for several days, an event which was recorded as the largest-ever interruption to the global air travel. This was amazing since ...