The beleaguered boss of British Airways has finally apologised in person for the global IT crash which caused chaos for more than 300,000 passengers over the weekend.

But chief executive Alex Cruz has denied the outsourcing of British Airways jobs was not to blame for the 'catastrophic' IT failure that brought the airline's operations to a halt, its chief executive said.

BA was accused of greed after the GMB union suggested the disruption could have been prevented if the beleaguered airline had not cut 'hundreds of dedicated and loyal' IT staff and contracted the work to India in 2016.

Mr Cruz added that a full investigation would be conducted into the failure which affected 75,000 passengers.

The chief executive also said he would not resign following the travel chaos.

British Airways boss Alex Cruz has personally apologised for the 'catastrophic' IT failure that saw flights cancelled and delayed for more than 300,000 passengers but said cutbacks and outsourcing of jobs was 'not to blame'

Passengers have been spotted setting up temporary shelters at Heathrow today as more flights were cancelled and delayed

Huge queues were building up at the airport, with British Airways apologising for problems

He told Sky News: 'I can confirm that all the parties involved around this particular event have not been involved in any type of outsourcing in any foreign country.

'They have all been local issues around a local data centre who has been managed and fixed by local resources.'

Mr Cruz said: 'On Saturday morning at around 9.30 there was indeed a power surge that had a catastrophic effect over some communications hardware which eventually affected all the messaging across our systems.'

He added: 'We will have completed an exhaustive investigation on exactly the reasons of why this happened. We will, of course, share those conclusions once we have actually finished them.

'We have no evidence whatsoever that there was any cyber attack of any sort.'

It comes after Mr Cruz tried to gag staff from commenting on the computer meltdown that has plunged hundreds of thousands of passengers into chaos.

Before speaking today, the Spanish businessman has chosen to record a series of video messages issued via BA's Twitter account.

Mr Cruz's email asking his workers not to comment British Airways boss Alex Cruz (pictured) Guys, either you are part of the team working to fix this or you aren't. We are not in the mode of 'debriefing on what happened' but rather 'let's fix this mode'. I have been answering some emails from colleagues (thank you for the support) and I just finished a video for media and another for all of us. I suppose you will have seen our Twitter account and BA.com. Now, your interest on today's events is well noted. I am wondering if you would like to help out? Either LHR or LGW or anyone of our stations could use you, now. If you indeed can, drop me a message and I will connect you or go straight to the airport and make yourself available. I am sure they will appreciate your involvement. In the meantime, if you do not want to get involved or cannot get involved, I would kindly ask you to refrain from live commentary, unless it is a message of support to the thousands of colleagues that love BA as much as you do. Thanks. Advertisement

The airline was unable to rebook flights yesterday after all of its IT systems went down, meaning the work had to be started afresh on Sunday (pictured, people asleep at Heathrow)

Mr Cruz has been bombarded by messages from staff seeking an explanation for the chaos to pass on to passengers.

But instead of coming clean, he issued an email for BA staff urging them not to speak publicly about the crisis.

In a message seen by many staff as a veiled threat, he wrote: 'Guys, either you are part of the team trying to fix this or you aren't. We are not in the mode of 'debriefing on what happened', but rather 'let's fix this mode'.'

He asked employees to volunteer to come in to work at Heathrow and Gatwick to tackle the backlog of flights and passengers but added: 'If you don't want to get involved or you cannot get involved, I would kindly ask you to refrain from live commentary.'

The airline has confirmed the email is genuine and said the intention is to encourage staff to volunteer to deal with the problems.

A source at BA said: 'There was no intention to silence people. While we welcome open discussion our focus now is to help our customers and get our operation back to normal.'

While British Airways IT systems are now running again, the airline has not said how long disruption will last for (pictured, people asleep on the floor at Heathrow on Sunday)

Mr Cruz made a controversial decision last year to shut down the airline's British computer department with the loss of 700 jobs around the country.

He is thought to have been paid £830,000 last year.

The tasks of designing and managing the firm's IT systems were contracted out to the Indian firm Tata Consultancy Services.

The £5billion Spanish merger It is the UK's flag carrier, and was once known as 'the world's favourite airline'. But in 2010, British Airways joined forces with Spanish airline Iberia in a £5 billion merger to create IAG, Europe's third largest scheduled airline. British shareholders took 55 per cent of the business and the firm based its operational headquarters in London, although the parent company is officially registered in Madrid. Willie Walsh, who first went to BA as chief executive after turning around Aer Lingus, is chief executive of IAG and saw his salary rise from £735,000 to £825,000 following the merger. With its roots in the pioneers of commercial flight soon after the First World War, British Airways came from a merger of British European Airways and BOAC in 1974. Advertisement

One of those made redundant said yesterday: 'The failure of their website doesn't surprise me at all.

'When I was still working there, all the BA-employed IT people still had some pride in what they did.'

The comments echo those of the GMB union's national aviation officer, Mick Rix, who said: 'This could have all been avoided. BA in 2016 made hundreds of dedicated and loyal IT staff redundant and outsourced the work to India.'

Mr Cruz, 51, has long had a reputation for ruthlessness. As boss of the no-frills airline Vuelling, he outlawed colour printing, banned paper towels from washrooms and offered visitors to business meetings only tap water.

The married father-of-four's penny-pinching talents were rewarded with the top job at British Airways 18 months ago. Out went free meals on every flight and in came extra seats to cram more passengers on to flights, severely reducing legroom.

Such moves provoked a backlash from customers who felt the airline – which once claimed to be the world's favourite – was selling its elegant image for swift profits.

But Mr Cruz breezily denied there was a problem. 'Consumers value what they get from BA,' he said in February. 'If they didn't, you wouldn't have customers or see the numbers growing.'

Mr Cruz was born in Spain but went to university in Michigan and Ohio in the US before joining American Airlines in 1990.

The businessman, who is thought to live in London, went on to become the founding chief executive of start-up budget airline Clickair and took over rival Vueling when the two firms merged.

There was steady growth during his time in charge, delighting the board at parent firm International Airlines Group, which also owns BA.

People attempt to keep themselves occupied on phones and with a nap at Heathrow on Sunday as the BA travel chaos spilled over into a second day

But his tenure was marred by customer complaints, with embittered travellers even launching a Facebook page. In an interview soon after taking over at BA, Mr Cruz scornfully dismissed BA's heritage as 'legacy practices'.

He said the company was 'very slow' and it was time to 'take decisions quickly and take them to market quickly'.

He was obsessed with technology, frequently citing Google, Facebook and Uber, and stressed that he thought airlines could thrive only if they mastered IT.

'We're prisoners, in a way, of really old technology which is very difficult to change,' he said.

Mr Cruz initially promised he was going to introduce new computer systems that would speed everything up – words that might be coming back to haunt him.

'There's new technology coming in that makes operations safer and faster,' he said. 'Lots of customers want to use this sort of technology to access the plane.'

While some BA flights have been departing on time from Heathrow, dozens more were cancelled on Sunday as the IT glitch left the airline's fleet out of position