British Airways has been fined more than £183 million aftercomputer hackers last year stole bank details from hundreds of thousands ofpassengers, its parent group IAG said Monday. In a statement, IAG said the UKInformation Commissioner’s Office intends to issue the airline with a penaltynotice under the UK Data Protection Act, totalling £183.39 million ($229.7million, 205 million euros).The fine is equivalent to 1.5 percent of BritishAirways’ turnover in 2017, IAG added.

IAG chief executive Willie Walsh said it would considerappealing the fine as it seeks “to take all appropriate steps to defend theairline’s position vigorously”. BA’s CEO Alex Cruz said the airline was“surprised and disappointed” by the punishment.British Airways respondedquickly to a criminal act to steal customers’ data,” he said in the statement.Wehave found no evidence of fraud/fraudulent activity on accounts linked to thetheft. We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this event caused,”Cruz added.

BA had revealed the hack in September, just a few monthsafter the European Union tightened data protection laws with the so-calledGeneral Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).