Learning English

British Airways' embarrassing mistake

British Airways says that the delays in its service over the weekend were because of a person making a mistake

Language challenge

British Airways have announced that the breakdown in their systems over the weekend was because someone made a mistake. Which of these phrasal verbs means to make a mistake?

a) to scrub up
b) to fowl up
c) to mess up

Watch the video and complete the activity

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The story

The head of British Airways' parent company has blamed human error for the computer problems that caused chaos for tens of thousands of passengers over the bank holiday weekend.

The chief executive of IAG, Willie Walsh, said an engineer had disconnected the power supply to a data centre, and then reconnected it without following the correct procedure.

Key words and phrases

human error
a mistake made by a person

meltdown
the complete failure of a system

fiasco
a complete and embarrassing failure

To do

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Downloads

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Language challenge - answer

c) to mess up

End of Session 2

Join us in Session 3 for Pronunciation in the News - our video which teaches you pronunciation using the latest BBC World News bulletins.