ajamieson

Of the 31 BA flights I have taken so far this year, 5 have arrived on time.

Nothing new in this, but more than ever I notice a reluctance of anybody to take responsibility for delays, or even sometimes acknowledge them. Announcements about delays seem to be left to pilots, who rarely offer a satisfactory explanation – in fact it’s astonishing how mealy-mouthed flight crews can be in their pre-departure PAs. We never seem to be “late” but rather “a little adrift of our scheduled departure time” (40 minutes) and “tardy” (30 minutes) or “playing catch-up” (one hour) and a genuine “sorry” is often replaced by “we realize” or “as you may have noticed” and “unfortunately.” A delay of less than half an hour rarely merits a mention. The first step to fixing a problem is recognizing you have one and BA's habit of enhancing delays into “a little past our scheduled departure time” isn’t just bad manners, it is an act of collective denial.

The cherry on the cake was a recent post-flight survey where “delay” wasn’t listed among the reasons for my dissatisfaction (arriving 1h 45m late on a 1h 25m domestic flight because of a tech issue). Instead there was a tick box for “a disruption to your flight timing.” Can BA not bring itself to say “cancellation or delay”?

Has anyone else encountered a better verbal enhancement during a BA delay? Perhaps an “unexpected deviation from the arrival time”? Or maybe an “unfortunate separation between the time on your ticket and the time on the clock”?

Kgmm77

On a recent early morning flight into LCY our departure was delayed due to flow restrictions into LCY due to ATC understaffing or whatever the excuse du jour was. The delay was flagged on the BA app from 2 hours before departure, so I was surprised when after boarding the Captain announced we were ready to go, flight time of x. Needless to say he came back on 10 mins later after no movement and said he had just become aware of what he realised many of us already knew from the app that we would be delayed 45 mins. Clearly he didn't have the BA app....! I do agree that generally the comms on BA are very good.

South London Bon Viveur

I find that BA crew are very good at explaining and apologising for (us Brits are good at apologising) delays. It's probably because they get a lot of practice. I would happily trade in the good communication of the crew for a better on time performance- BA's performance on that front is woeful. So much so that I was literally stunned when my most recent flight actually arrived on time.

Oxon Flyer

A number of posts that weren't in accordance with the FT rules or the spirit of good-natured discussion of flights and points have been removed.

Moderators have been receiving an increasing volume of complaints recently about the number of times that a specific group of posters are diverting threads with off-topic commentaries about the culture of the forum, and the worthiness of thread topics and other FT members. You know, the posts that go like "Well what would you expect in a forum whose membership is largely made up geeks / cranks / apologists / moaners / ranters / chancers / nutters ....."

Please, address the topic, and remember the FT golden rule : "If you don't have something constructive to contribute to a thread, please do not post"

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Oxon Flyer

Three more recent examples for you :

< Rolling up to T5, 7 minutes ahead of schedule > "Oh, we have arrived early and taken them completely by surprise" < 20 minute wait before pulling on to gate. Translates to "No ground crew" >

< Rolling up to T5, 3 minutes ahead of schedule > "There's another bloke on our stand, who is still boarding his passengers and loading the catering" <25 minute wait. The 'other bloke' was actually departing on time. Translates to "Not enough gates" >

< 30 minutes boarding delay at T5 > "Delay to the incoming aircraft" < The aircraft had a pre-planned 15-minute turn at T5. It came in on time. Translates to "Not enough aircraft" >

ENTP

Brilliant, keep em coming.
These knock the socks off "the wrong type of snow", or, more recently, "the wrong type of sun"

crazy8534

Hmmm- T5 is certainly on a knife edge it's so busy just now. We had a long wait for a late night pushback the other day due to a very limited number of tugs available, according to the captain. I'm not sure if they have just had a bad couple of months with delays out of their control or there is a culmination of other problems perhaps including FLY etc.

Although I will say that on the topic of communication, and having recently spent a fair bit of time on AA flights where the captain doesn't speak to the cabin much at all (including a 2hr departure delay- no cockpit announcement), I find BA staff to be normally excellent at keeping me informed. YMMV.

scottishpoet

One of the best excuses I had for a delay to getting off the plane a few years ago was that the doors were frozen shut

cosmo74

We arrived 30 minutes early on a flight from DUB to T5 on Sunday - we then waited 30 minutes for a gate to be available. Which translates as 'we pad our schedule with additional time to make it look like we're not late' and 'we don't have enough gates when you do actually fly in the time it should take'.

obduro

I think there was a thread some time ago questioning how frequently updates on delays should be provided, and the level of detail it should go into, which lends itself to this thread also. I must say I can't sympathise with the OP as my BA flights tend to be on time, I can only think of the standard delay in YYZ as the last time I had an issue in this regard and the captain/crew provided good updates and info throughout - no "fluff" on that occasion

ajamieson

Yes! Landing a couple of minutes early than disembarking late = officially late.

While I agree that BA pilots are generally good at making some kind announcement, there's a lot of sugar-coating. Seems to me that each workgroup is content to blame the other or something else for late-running. Language is important because it reveals the underlying attitude. There really should be company-wide zero tolerance for late arrivals and a bit of honesty wouldn't go amiss IMHO.

I mean, would you arrive 45 minutes late to a dinner date and say (in BA pilot voice): "As you can see, we are somewhat adrift of our agreed time, so apologies for that"?

peck

Parked at a remote gate (joy) I got stuck on a fully loaded 747 coming back from SFO a couple of years ago because they couldn't find the keys to drive the stairs up to the door. 60 minutes of my life I'll never see again.

PUCCI GALORE

No Darling - but I'd use my Joan Collins/Alexis Carrington voice and inflection - and I'd be very very careful about which shade of lipstick I'd use.

Right Lipgloss set to kill (there's an awfully old joke making unflattering, nay vulgar comparisons between Rotweillers and BA female crew members but you are far too polite to say even if you remembered.

So - to go back to topic

I think that departures are just going west with BA. A very dear friend has recently introduced his new (and French) partner to the joys of BA. This gentleman made Silver in this first year - just so that you know that this is not someone doing a couple of flights a year.

His reaction to BA is that it is an airline well run in parts. The crews and the flights are superb (his word) but of all his flights, one only left on time. Ultimately what matters most is when it arrives but even those have slipped. Even travelling to IST, the flight managed to leave late on all three occasions. There always seems to be some issue. I have pointed out that you can be aboard all ready to go and then ATC throw a slot at you that is way out.

Something is clearly wrong. Are the turnaround times unrealistic? Is there too much luggage? The worst seems to be Gatwick I have to say.

I'll say this too - I do not mind people coming on here criticizing British Airways - I do mind if I happen to think that the whole incident is made up or exaggerated out of all proportion just to cause a frisson. To me this makes us less credible in the eyes of those watching us from BA when they should be registering everything that we know is being "enhanced" to the point of some of us leaving. I also object to being told that I'm an apologist (whatever that really means) when one tries to come up with reasonable and balanced argument as to why things go wrong. These delays are getting ridiculous but guess what - AA have the same problem on their domestic network.

So - here we are - does anyone have any good ideas about how this could be improved?

ajamieson

A perfect description! BA should have it translated into Latin and put on the headed notepaper.
I quite agree.

Improvements? I'd like to see flight crews made their apology PA facing the cabin so that they can look people in the eye instead of hiding behind pompous phrases like "somewhat tardy". Better still, be on time in the first place. Lesser airlines can manage it! Much more important to me than being individually greeted from the ipad "as a valued gold member" ... two hours late.

V10

I don't blame the pilots either. I suspect a lot of it is typical British deprecation where they know the situation is crap, they know you know that it's crap, and well let's just attempt to make light of it. They can't do much about it either. It's another croque de merde foisted on them and all the other poor grunts by the clueless suits over at Waterside Ivory Towers.

As for how it could be improved. Well, I suppose there are various possibilities. Unfortunately they all involve spending money or raising it in order to do so.