I am currently sitting at B34 and have to say: Wow! What a change! Inbound flight was delayed, however, they put me on an earlier (delayed) one so it was not that bad at all. But shorts walks, effective immigration. And today? Quick early morning security, very nice lounge and a bright terminal with a view - and the first Monday morning flight in time I had ex LHR for months!
I hope it'll be like this when I get there in April.
Me? I'd have Walsh's letter of resignation on my desk before the day ended and I would go on bended knee to Barbara Cassani and beg her to come and run the carrier. She is imbued with the essence of Colin Marshall from her Avis days and she actually cares about the customer and has forgotten more about branding than most people will ever learn.
Without wanting to repeat everything I said in my last post (and thanks for the supportive comments) the reasons why WW should resign or be fired is actually very simple.
His main responsibility is to form and surround himself with and then lead a competent management team. A good team will be realistic and confident in giving him accurate feedback and "bad news". He also needs to be a leader which all staff admire and want to support and follow. It is clear that he has instead managed to surround himself with a management team that have despite all the feedback, trials, warnings and common sense, reassured him that all would be OK at T5 on day 1, when clearly the chances were it wouldn't be. They would have taken him through the challenges, and the back-ups and the contingencies. And he has accepted all that he heard. Things went wrong in so many areas that clearly BOTH he and his management team planned incompetently to a degree we rarely see in large projects.
Then, if this weren't bad enough, when things started to go wrong, his management team should have been in the background whilst he should have been "out front". What actually happened was that there was a feeling somehow that he was hiding in some darkened basement cul-de-sac, and when he eventetually emerged he somehow thought that his belated acceptance of responsibility would dazzle us. It didn't because it was late and disproportionate and simply made people more angry. At the same time his team were misleading customers and trying to cheat them - and that might lead to even further legal sanctions.
In summary the reason why he should resign is because he doesn't understand the concept of leadership versus financial management; has apparently managed to lose the confidence of most or all of his staff; has damaged the share price and therefore I presume lost the confidence of shareholders; has lost the support of customers; has in what should have been a very tightly planned project appears to have not recognised many of the risks and therefore planned adequate contingencies; has failed to take a more cautious / less risky approach to the opening; surrounded himself with people that neither recognised the risks, plan contingencies and when things went wrong - didn't cope; and then they all jointly totally mishandled the aftermath. In so doing he has also damaged the brand and the national reputation abroad and made us a laughing stock.
In a few months there will be the "lost luggage airlines top-ten". And guess who will be top again? BA. And what will be the headline reasons? "The opening of T5"!
What more does he have to do to show his is an incapable leader of BA?
Actually I have studied this extensively and all of BA's T1 delays in the past were down to BD and EI hogging so many gates at T1 !
Isn't this exactly the style of the BA v BAA debacle at the moment, i.e. If you blame me, I'll blame you...... Knowing BA's dire punctuality record for T1 and T4 , I have no doubt that BD is shouting from the rooftops. And still, with a terminal to themselves, BA had a pathetic 21% on time departure record this weekend. Me thinks other airlines are not to blame.
Programs: BA Gold, FB Plat., HH Diamond, SPG Plat. PC Gold
Posts: 15
I believe I am not the only one, but I decided to "switch" airline this week... to avoid T5.
I am sure BA must appreciate my sacrifice, as I am reducing their burden .
Matter of fact is that this morning, I left on time, landed earlier than scheduled, had no problems with luggage in a pretty empty Terminal 2. I was wondering if Terminal 2 used the same baggage handlers than BA?
When taking off this morning, although the schedule departure time of BA and my flight defered only bt 5 minutes, BA was still on the ground, with busy people all around the aircraft.
Conclusion is that BA, even outside T5, cannot manage to be punctual and within Heathrow, manage to get the worst service out of BAA!
Some good news for BA staff from Citibank this morning:
"Based on daily revenue of 23 million pounds and disruption costs of 100 to 200 pounds per passenger, we estimate the earnings impact so far to be 15 to 25 million," Citibank analysts said in a note.
They added that the firm's financial results may not be impacted too heavily, however, due to the structure of its bonus scheme.
"Most losses are likely to be borne by staff because it reduces the likelihood of a bonus (based on a 10 percent operating margin target) being paid."
Programs: UA MP Premier, SPG Gold, BA Silver wanabee
Posts: 171
[quote=PUCCI GALORE;9493102]They thought that they could face anything down by legal action as they are with the pilots (that has not gone away it's just around the corner in the courts.)[quote]
Is it not the case that BA's hand is now severely weakened with regard to how it deals with the pilots and their strike threat, regardless of the court-case outcome? A (potential) 3 day outage following the T5 opening fiasco? Somehow I really don't think so.
Programs: BAEC Silver; Muccis du Monde des Peluches
Posts: 3,633
Quote:
Originally Posted by traveller5
I think the 'loyalty' to the BA brand is only based on the fact that there are very few alternatives;
For many of us who fly from London to a range of destinations, the only real alternative is promiscuity, i.e. making a completely independent choice of airline for each journey. You lose the FF benefits, but you do get to choose the carrier offering the best deal otherwise.
With BA's current performance, promiscuity is looking like the way to go.
So of course it is entirely possible that lots of BA customers may learn that things are much better with everyone else and not come back. I for one would not blame them at all. The Management have no one else but themselves to thank for this debacle.
Me? I'd have Walsh's letter of resignation on my desk before the day ended and I would go on bended knee to Barbara Cassani and beg her to come and run the carrier. She is imbued with the essence of Colin Marshall from her Avis days and she actually cares about the customer and has forgotten more about branding than most people will ever learn.
The reason I remain loyal to BA (or at least, favourable towards choosing them!) is, these days, largely down to knowing that many of the staff on the ground and in the air do care about us passengers, and are determined to take pride in their work and provide a good service.
I've already dropped from Gold to Silver this year due to some of my flying being shifted to another airline (and some of it being down the back). It's quite telling that I had no good business reason to keep it on BA - my personal preference for dedicate staff doesn't really cut it with the travel bookers at the office (or the finance department who write the cheques!)
It's also a shame that these days that the staff's attitude is perhaps more obvious here on a forum rather than when travelling, because sadly those dedicated staff are too busy fire-fighting stupid management decisions to really have a chance to shine.
I'm still looking forward to my flight on Wednesday (providing no shifting takes place I ought to be happily sat on BA005 in 62A). Even though I've had a stressful few weeks, first with the thought of a pilot strike and now with the uncertainty over the T5 experience and needing to rethink what bags to take, I'm still hopeful that I'll have a relaxing wait in one of the shiny new lounges and then get one of the many excellent crews and have an enjoyable flight to Tokyo. It's my other half's first taste of CW and I certainly would hate to think that it will end up being the last (return leg not withstanding!)
So to all the BA staffers here on the forum, I for one applaud you and thank you for making the company what it is (even now) when the management seem determined to run it into the ground.
I imagine this is due to the BAA's 'no tannoy' policy. Pretty sure this applies to the lounges as it even applies to the new crew report centre (CRC)
The policy regarding announcements was quite inconsistent when I was in the First Galleries on Saturday morning. For several flights there were boarding announcements (as in the T1/T4 lounges), for others there was just a "the flight is closing" announcement. Based on the number of announcements in total I assumed that for some departures there was no announcement at all.
With no monitors showing the departure information yet, this was confusing, so I had to check with the desk at the lounge entrance about the status of my flight (which turned out to be delayed because of a shortage of gate staff).
Due to the new open layout of the spa, you hear announcements during your treatment. It felt like I had a speaker right above me and there was a very loud departure announcement every couple of minutes during my massage - and you hear lots of other noises from the terminal, too. Not my idea of a relaxing treatment. I liked the old spa(s) and also the Molton Brown treatments much more - I will likely skip treatments from now on.
The lounge itself is very nice and airy though. My only complaint there was that the Champagne was too warm and that it was a long walk to get it .
Everything else (i.e. outside of the lounge area) was really a disaster, but I expect that they should be able to work this out. Hopefully quickly. At least I have not yet started rebooking my flights...
Programs: LH SEN, SN Gold, Eurostar Carte Blanche, BA, QF, AF
Posts: 6,142
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smirnoff
However it is totally unrealistic to expect Joe Public to be taking shoes off, belts off, coats off, and piling everything up in their arms, at the same time shuffling forward, with no trays to put them in until the last moment.
It doesn't work like this in the real world.
In reality, those 3 tray positions are taken up by one, or may be two, persons to pile or their stuff in, who do so only as they reach the conveyor. Hence the queues. This was all rather obvious and predictable.
I find that the only working solution is to have very long (meaning 5-10 metres) set of rollers in front of the x-ray, and sufficient table space after the x-ray. Then people can start unpacking when they get to the set of rollers and finish unpacking before they get to the x-ray, all while constantly moving forward. This allows for a constant flow of people that are ready to go through the x-ray. Look at BRU, it works. Why one would not implement this in a wholly new designed terminal is a mystery to me.
I find that the only working solution is to have very long (meaning 5-10 metres) conveyor belts in front of the x-ray, and sufficient table space after the x-ray. Then people can start unpacking when they get to the conveyor belt and finish unpacking before they get to the x-ray, all while constantly moving forward. This allows for a constant flow of people that are ready to go through the x-ray. Look at BRU, it works. Why one would not implement this in a wholly new designed terminal is a mystery to me.
Several US airports have a set of sequential signs that remind you to remove various items (shoes, coats, laptops, etc.) well in advance of the X-ray machine. Some have video screens that broadcast this information. Others have staff to remind you of this.
This is further backed up with a long set of rollers (no conveyor belt) to allow customers to shed their belongings prior to the X-ray machine and to push their own bins up to the X-ray machine as they are ready. At some older airports, space limitations may preclude all of the elements from being put in place.
After the X-ray machine, a series of tables and chairs (or benches) are often provided to repack items and to allow those less fleet of foot to put on their shoes again.
Why isn't this done at T5?
Perhaps the architect did not want to diminish his 'calm' terminal design with such common clutter?
This attitude is also a reason why some terminals have poor customer wayfinding signage-- so that brightly lit signs do not detract from the purity and clean lines of the terminal-- customers be damned!
Programs: AA 1MM - EXP, BA Silver, BD Silver, SPG Plat, Hilton Silver
Posts: 3,954
Quote:
Originally Posted by Globehopper
Several US airports have a set of sequential signs that remind you to remove various items (shoes, coats, laptops, etc.) well in advance of the X-ray machine. Some have video screens that broadcast this information. Others have staff to remind you of this.
This is further backed up with a long set of rollers (no conveyor belt) to allow customers to shed their belongings prior to the X-ray machine and to push their own bins up to the X-ray machine as they are ready. At some older airports, space limitations may preclude all of the elements from being put in place.
After the X-ray machine, a series of tables and chairs (or benches) are often provided to repack items and to allow those less fleet of foot to put on their shoes again.
Why isn't this done at T5?
Perhaps the architect did not want to diminish his 'calm' terminal design with such common clutter?
This attitude is also a reason why some terminals have poor customer wayfinding signage-- so that brightly lit signs do not detract from the purity and clean lines of the terminal-- customers be damned!
When I flew back via DFW last week there were tables separate from the X-ray rollers where people could line up either side and get their act together re shoes, coat, liquids etc and there were trays at these points to put your stuff into. When you were ready you then walked to the X-ray and went straight on through.
This meant that if there was a family of 5 faffing about with all their stuff they didn't hold up the queue as people from the other side of the table were able to walk up to the X-ray when they were ready.
This seems a much more logical way to cater for differences in people's preparedness for the X-ray.
The only queue was to get to the tables in the first place and that was only a few minutes
to avoid T5.
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