It’s a mantra routinely adhered to by good PR agencies, which understand certain events are beyond our control; that humans are fallible, and mistakes happen. It is how a company reacts to said mistake – and how it compensates its customers – which is key. As the famous billionaire Warren Buffett once pointed out: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

British Airways seems to have missed both these memos. Just over a year ago, it suffered its now infamous IT glitch on one of the busiest bank holiday weekends of the year. Earlier in the year it faced criticism for the scrapping of food and drink on short-haul flights, and later, the reduction of leg-room in economy class.

You might have thought it would now be desperately trying to woo its customers.

There were raised eyebrows then this week as it emerged the airline was facing another PR disaster – this time involving the cancellation of thousands of tickets.

For its part, BA claims the move was necessary after tickets were wrongly priced. It insists it is “very sorry” and the tickets of most of those affected (more than 10,000, TTG understands) have been refunded and vouchers issued.

What BA doesn’t state is that these vouchers are for just £100. With the amended flight prices now up to £500 higher than the original ticket prices advertised, the vouchers have been described as worthless. And as one travel couple who had their flights cancelled told TTG this week, they don’t exactly feel confident booking with BA now.

Honouring all of the original fares might have been costly for BA, but it would have done wonders for its reputation – both with customers and agents. And that kind of PR is priceless.