On arrival at T5 the transfer process went smoothly with just a small queue. On arrival at the lounge we checked that the bags had made it and it was confirmed that all was well. We had a couple of quick drinkies and headed off for a wander to T5B for our departure. Little train things kept on breaking but got through alright in the end. Got to the gate and asked for confirmation that bags were loaded, not expecting them to be we were pleased when they confirmed that they thought they might be, although they couldn't confirm exactly! Had a really nice flight with great crew in ET and arrived just a little late in IST (both flights had been late although not exactly a surprise really). Waited for an hour at IST before accepting that the bags weren't going to come out
We received comfirmation at the lost baggage office that the bags had not made it and that the transit time was too short, we were on a through ticket well over the minimum connection time.
Anyway good news it that just woken up in IST and the luggage has arrived so please have hope if your bags have gone walkies they are sorting things out
So moral of the story stuff your hand luggage and hope for the best. They do appear to be correcting things (at least in some cases) quickly!
T5 looks like paradise today compared with Thursday.
However.....
Queues (6-8 people long) at every single bag drog
Queues (3-4 familiies long) at F check-in (with kids sprawled over the floor, as there is inadequate seating here)
Although I by-passed the bag drop queues, it took 15 minutes to print a return BP, as the SSCI machine wasn't playing ball, and the only manned printer by the SSCI machines was broken and the SSCI supervisor didn't have much of a clue about anything. Had to wait till he went to a manned bag drog and got them to do it. Eventually.
Security is a nightmare, 30 minutes to clear "fast" track. The queue for all channels is back to the BP check. They only ask "business or economy" and let anyone who (i) is in business, (ii) says they are business or (iii) doesn't speak English, oh and (iv) groups of schoolkids, into the fast-track queue.
The silly security machines, and the procedures for retrieving your belongings without removing the bucket is the main cause of the delays. Oh, and if you give the empty bucket at the end a nudge (as I just happened to do), it jams the whole system, and the empty buckets go nowhere. Grrr.
The man on the F reception was nice and cheery (a change from the numpties on Thursday) and expressed some surprise that I cam back after Thursday. Well, we'll see if I end up flying anywhere today.
All in all, some 55 minutes from Valet Parking to F Lounge. And this is a quiet Sunday morning. Not impressed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1P
I'm even flying Alitalia to Rome early next month, just to avoid BA...
Everyone else has already said it about BA: disinterest in pax, lousy frequent flyer programme. All my friends gave up on BA years ago. What I can't understand is why so many on this forum have put up with it for so long.
Quote:
Originally Posted by map724
Do you work for another airline? Alitalia? Come on, you have to be kidding. Next you'll tell us you're flying TAP because the food is superior. Why do we "put up" with BA? Hmmm, cabin crew exemplary, flat beds, excellent lounges, to name a few. Sure they have some issues, but all airlines do, and certainly nothing approaching the utter indifference I have suffered on Alitalia's mezozoic-era planes.
No. I'm a UA flyer by choice - and I reap the rewards. Every time I fly BA, I live to regret it. My point was simply that I'd even fly Alitalia (I've never flown them before) to avoid BA.
No. I'm a UA flyer by choice - and I reap the rewards. Every time I fly BA, I live to regret it. My point was simply that I'd even fly Alitalia (I've never flown them before) to avoid BA.
Bye then Thanks for playing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smirnoff
Queues (6-8 people long) at every single bag drog
Queues (3-4 familiies long) at F check-in (with kids sprawled over the floor, as there is inadequate seating here)...
Security is a nightmare, 30 minutes to clear "fast" track. The queue for all channels is back to the BP check. They only ask "business or economy" and let anyone who (i) is in business, (ii) says they are business or (iii) doesn't speak English, oh and (iv) groups of schoolkids, into the fast-track queue...
All in all, some 55 minutes from Valet Parking to F Lounge. And this is a quiet Sunday morning. Not impressed.
Did we not identify that as the bottleneck? 5 mins the bloke said. Didn't believe him then, certainly don't now. As you say, this is a Sunday, dealing mainly with the shorthaul ops.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by map724
Next you'll tell us you're flying TAP because the food is superior. Why do we "put up" with BA?
Actually the food on TP is better, certainly in shorthaul Y and C. In both cases you get a hot meal which is a complete non starter in BA Y. The food offerings in C tend to be quite Portuguese (as you might expect) but this is a plus for me. I haven't flown longhaul TP, but I cannot imagine that the food in J is worse than BA.
It's going to be very very interesting come 7am tomorrow morning. It was plainly clear that the procedure for photographing domestic passengers, let along fingerprinting them, had not been thought through. The camera, for example, was not in a fixed position like at Gatwick, but actually on an axis that allowed it to rotate, pitch and yaw. Whilst this was tremendously useful in order that the nice man could get my face from the right angle, the good side and with the right light (etcetera) it did mean it took several minutes of maneuvering and frustrated mouse-clicking before we got a useable picture.
Now, when the suits descend on Monday for the domestics, expect chaos.
And then they'll go into security, where all the laptops they're carrying will have to go into the stupid tray system etc. etc.
The silly security machines, and the procedures for retrieving your belongings without removing the bucket is the main cause of the delays. Oh, and if you give the empty bucket at the end a nudge (as I just happened to do), it jams the whole system, and the empty buckets go nowhere. Grrr.
We pointed this out on the very first trial day and glad to see that despite giving feed back, square root of bugger all has been done.
It will be more interesting come mid-April when all the suits are back from family holidays. I wonder how many will change bookings after experiencing the joys of T5 with the family.
__________________
Love is a Kick...From me to you!
I currently have all my transatlantic flights from/to LHR until mid-August confirmed, all already upgraded with miles or systemwides, all seats already assigned in biz, with a slab of other upgrades sitting waiting to be used later in the year.
This is exactly why US airlines product is so so poor compared to BA. Why should I pay for biz/first class ticket if I know that half of pax got it for free? An airline cannot sustain a good product unless it charges for it. So for I would rather stick to BA for excellent product.
We pointed this out on the very first trial day and glad to see that despite giving feed back, square root of bugger all has been done.
That's prompted me to dig up my report in the old thread from the first trial (27 September) (excerpts below - I've removed some less relevant parts but I've tried not to change the meaning of anything I posted back then).
Quote:
Originally Posted by SLF
Only the security scanning was being tested today. So round & round we went, being rescanned. All hand luggage has to go into the little trays, so no bags directly on the rollers - which are driven so no need to push them (although the tray-return system did seem to get stuck a lot).
I guess today they were trying to determine what the throughput would be when they tinkered with the variables. E.g. what the best quantity of trays is in each scanner - too many and the system will jam up, too few and it impacts throughput as pax have to wait for a tray
As LHR Tim said, it seems that this exercise was pointless, with no lessons learned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SLF
Finding your car in the car park is a challenge ... and the staff are using it now and getting confused finding their cars.
Have followed the replies on transferring from T5 to T4. However I'd be arriving at T5 from GLA and then T3 for SQ connection. Question:-
1. Would I have to go through the 2 hours wait at FCC. Wasn't sure if there are now 2 FCCs one for T123 and other for T5. or
2 Use tube to to T123 and then go through normal T3 checkin.
Normally from T1 just went through FCC with no further security checks.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LHR Tim
We pointed this out on the very first trial day and glad to see that despite giving feed back, square root of bugger all has been done.
This there's-not-a-problem-I'm-just-here-to-tick-some-boxes attitude is the shocking thing about all this, and the root cause of the problems. They didn't do proper trials with realistic load levels over an extended period (e.g. testing typical passenger flow over an hour or two) and they compounded this error many times by not making serious attempt to learn lessons from the trials they did conduct which makes the whole exercise pretty pointless.
It seems that there is a culture of ignoring problems and pretending they don't exist wherever possible. This is absolutely disastrous and the fault must lie with senior management who have to go. It is essential in a successful organization for all staff to be encouraged and trained to regard small, potentially recurring problems, as things they need to take responsibility for, and rewarded for doing that part in making sure they are resolved. (I spent the whole of Friday jumping up and down about a problem that wasn't my direct responsibility until people listened; explaining to them why their first ten random guess explanations/dismissals couldn't possible explain the symptoms of the problem we were observing; finally pinning it down and to some extent fixing it; when I was under a lot of pressure to do something else which I judged to be less important. If I didn't believe I worked for an organization where I would ultimately be rewarded for that kind of behaviour, I would resign.)
WW was quoted as blaming the fiasco on a multitude of small problems. Does the blithering fool not realize that all these small problems are symptomatic of a single culture which doesn't think things through, ignores those who raise concerns, and instead spends all its energy on generating the most absurdly high expectations describing such things as never having to queue behind more than one other person which we now realize are just WW's pipe dreams.
Until senior management goes, frankly BA deserves to fail.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by neilmac
Use tube to to T123 and then go through normal T3 checkin.
This is what I would do (although I'd take the HEX, which is free to T123 - the Tube isn't - and is located closer to T3). T3 isn't so bad these days if you avoid the India/Pakistan rush (roughly 1800 to 2000 seem to be the worst times, mainly because of relatives seeing folks off clogging check-in areas and the entrance to security channels).
! Had a really nice flight with great crew in ET and arrived just a little late in IST (both flights had been late although not exactly a surprise really). Waited for an hour at IST before accepting that the bags weren't going to come out
and that the transit time was too short
, we were on a through ticket well over the minimum connection time. 
