British Airways (BA) fined after staff damage at Heathrow | EUROtoday

British Airways (BA) has been fined greater than £3.2m after two of its baggage handlers suffered critical accidents in falls at Heathrow Airport.

The males had been damage in “near-identical” incidents on the west London airport whereas utilizing televators – machines used to load baggage into planes – Southwark Crown Court heard.

Ravinder Teji suffered again accidents and lower his head when he fell 1.5m (4ft 11ins) in August 2022, whereas Shahjahan Malik suffered a bleed on the mind after falling 3m in March 2023.

The airline beforehand pleaded responsible to 2 breaches of security rules following a prosecution introduced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Mr Teji was coping with baggage from a short-haul flight, whereas Mr Malik was offloading baggage from a flight from Seattle, the HSE’s Andrew McGee informed the courtroom.

As effectively as a bleed on the mind, Mr Malik suffered fractures to his brow, nostril and jaw.

Judge Brendan Finucane KC mentioned: “His jaw had to be sewed shut. He was on a fluid diet for months. He was on medication for a considerable period of time.

“He nonetheless suffers from ongoing ache and complications from what occurred to him.”

The televators had not been fitted with protection such as guardrails, the court heard.

Judge Finucane, who said he was “glad that in each incidents the culpability was excessive”, fined BA £3,208,333 and also ordered the airline to pay £20,935 in costs.

James Leonard KC, for BA, told the court that both men had returned to work in different roles and the company had “accomplished every part they will to facilitate that and to ensure that related changes have been made”.

After the hearing, HSE enforcement lawyer Rebecca Schwartz said the men were fortunate to be alive.

“The dangers of working at top and the required management measures are effectively established – in these circumstances satisfactory guardrails would have considerably decreased the danger of hurt,” she mentioned.

A BA spokesman mentioned: “Safety is all the time our highest precedence, and we deeply remorse that regardless of the measures we had in place, these incidents occurred.”