Just some anecdotal evidence. We returned from skiing in Canada this morning.
...handy report snipped...
Thanks - that's interesting to hear.
I already decided that I'm going to take an approach of trying to carry about half my stuff on board and check the rest in. It won't ruin my holiday if some things don't make it, I can make do if necessary. But it sounds like the chances are I'll be ok anyway.
While I've certainly packed more in carry-on before, I don't want to travel too light on a supposedly relaxing holiday, and I'm traveling around a bit when I get there so the type and amount of luggage I take has a knock-on affect.
Now if my other half can just work out how to pack her whole "summer wardrobe" into a carrier bag, we'll be fine!
One foreign minister I met at the informal meeting in Slovenia over the weekend has fallen victim to the Terminal 5 saga. He arrived merely to transit, but his bags are nowhere to be seen and it was whispered that it might take weeks. He asked me to pass on a message to BA/BAA: for goodness sake get your act together
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Quote:
Originally Posted by IAMORGAN
......He explained that the aircraft had been on stand five minutes late but that there were a lack of dispatchers so they had to delay the flight by two hours....
.....Sorry, but I don't think I understand the situation because this is no backlog, this is a miscellany of issues ranging from basic staff familiarisation, staff shortages.....
I really struggle with this "staff shortages" T5 bollox. Do BA simply not have enough staff - period? Or has there been mass sickies as was threatened due to "stress" by baggage handlers etc?
Does BA not have enough staff because they are now spread across too many terminals at LHR? - in which case they surely should accelerate the move across from T4.
"Staff shortages" seem to represent a spectacular planning failure to me by both BA and BAA. With all the publicity of the problems on Thursday and Friday I was astonished to read of some FT'ers experiences this morning stating that there were queues at check-in, security, FCC etc - but only half the lanes / scanners open. One of the main publicity thrusts from both BAA and BA pre-T5 opening was that queues would be a thing of the past.
Well BA and BAA, why aren't you making that happen???? - it is inexcusable to have long queues with security lanes and scanners not operating
Utter TOTFO
Last edited by BOH; Mar 31, 08 at 4:40 pm.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DFB_london
Agreed.
After my experience, while it is stunning inside of T5 (especially the lounges), so much does not work. ....
What does run from T5 (and cancelling 20% of your flights each day is a pretty poor show) is still delayed because they cant seem to get the bags to the plane on time - so you just sit there and wait... and wait (in my experience).
Of course, I hate to say I told you so (more or less, apart from an understandable mix-up of the equally vain and useless RR and NF).
Pity I'm not allowed to short shares on my personal account.
And no, of course I'm not blaming the appalling lack of staff training and preparation on the architect. But I do blame the architect for a complete disregard for practicalities after a career of designing barely useable buildings, and I did not think the choice of architect bode well (to say the least) for the priorities of those who had commissioned him.
Last edited by LeisureFirst; Mar 31, 08 at 4:20 pm.
But how much of a cock-up was DEN when it opened? A pretty big one IIRC.
And who remembers that now - and how long did UA suffer?
I believe a lot of people remember it and there have been seemingly innumerable papers, studies, dissertations, etc., written about it. What was significant was that people there recognized through testing that there was a problem (basically the baggage system did not work) and delayed the opening for over a year and then installed a conventional baggage system to replace the automated system that would not work. United took over the automated system and continued trying to salvage it before finally giving up on it in 2003. Once the airport opened then problems with the trains surfaced and continued to make life for those traveling through Denver troublesome for a few years until they were finally remedied. Today things in Denver work pretty well, except when the weather gets real bad and the wind starts howling and the access road closes and the airport closes . . ..
Does BA not have enough staff because they are now spread across too many terminals at LHR? - in which case they surely should accelerate the move across from T4.
You'd have thought that the ground staff that worked on the flights that moved from T1, T3 & T4 would have moved to T5, meaning that there should have been enough staff......
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BOH
Well BA and BAA, why the <<SNIPPED>> aren't you making that happen???? - it is inexcusable to have long queues with security lanes and scanners not operating
Utter <<SNIPPED>>
I have to agree with all comments in your post. It isn't JUST baggage that's the issue it seems; scanners not being open, check in (sorry, 'fast bag drop') desks aren't open and it seems that IRIS is now broken already. The groundstaff still have problems with airbridges etc. It's just going to be the same BA problems in a lovely new building that's completely wasted on an airline that calls a 'majority' of its flights operating about 80%
T4 has had longhaul cancellations today -IAD, JFK, EWR etc. Is this open skies taking effect?
I never thought I'd say this, but I am thinking of trying Virgin; I will give BA a month, but this is not just one issue in my view -totally different to DEN -the baggage system seems to be working, it seems to be the staff that aren't, but they were all running around like headless chickens, I saw one stressed GA walking round in circles, she couldn't decide which ringing phone to answer first!!
What's going on? Does anyone actually know? Why so many cancellations?
I ask again -what is the problem? No information is being given, but more flights are being cancelled. If they would just say WHAT the issues are and WHAT they are doing about it, but cancelling this number of flights -making it a week of disruption, is not acceptable, I'm sorry, but it's not.
What is going on at BA?
And no, of course I'm not blaming the appalling lack of staff training and preparation on the architect. But I do blame the architect for a complete disregard for practicalities after a career of designing barely useable buildings, and I did not think the choice of architect bode well (to say the least) for the priorities of those who had commissioned him.
Lovely as the building is, I am not sure I understand the concept of all this upstairs downstairs business. I've never seen anything "flow" that has to go up and down 100 times.
From parking the car, it's UP to check-in, DOWN to the shops, UP to the F Lounge, UP again to the Club Lounge, DOWN again, DOWN once again to the shops, and DOWN to board the plane.
But how much of a cock-up was DEN when it opened? A pretty big one IIRC. And who remembers that now - and how long did UA suffer?
Pretty big, yes. And don't go thinking FFs in the US have forgotten. We know which airports "work" and which don't, and I have colleagues who rather pointedly avoid DEN whenever possible (as do I - but I avoid UA entirely whenever possible, due to numerous cock-ups on their part). I'm still waiting for an A380 or something to run into the pedestrian bridge at DEN.
Those of us who fly internationally tend to figure out quickly what does and doesn't work overseas as well, so most people I deal with (typically flying 50-150K miles a year) had LHR on their "avoid" list already, even before T5. T5 stumbling out of the blocks isn't going to change that, of course - but if it had been fabulously successful from the get-go, LHR might have been viewed with less disdain.
If it makes the Brits feel any better, we also pretty uniformly loathe CDG and its endlessly circling buses. We pretty uniformly like AMS, though. Funny that the oldest major airport in Europe is the one most agree "got it right."
(Wow, this was my 3,000th post!)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BOH
I really struggle with this "staff shortages" T5 bollox. Do BA simply not have enough staff - period? Or has there been mass sickies as was threatened due to "stress" by baggage handlers etc?
Does BA not have enough staff because they are now spread across too many terminals at LHR? - in which case they surely should accelerate the move across from T4.
"Staff shortages" seem to represent a spectacular planning failure to me by both BA and BAA. With all the publicity of the problems on Thursday and Friday I was astonished to read of some FT'ers experiences this morning stating that there were queues at check-in, security, FCC etc - but only half the lanes / scanners open. One of the main publicity thrusts from both BAA and BA pre-T5 opening was that queues would be a thing of the past.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I seem to remember someone from BA on this board talking about new working practices that would coincide with the opening of T5. For that I read "automation is expected to increase productivity".
It's also a fact of life that whenever you more offices or to any new location you disturb the people and even if they're using the same equipment in a new location the productivity drops off for a while, plus all sorts of stupid, niggling, petty arguments break out.
Add to that the inevitable unfamiliarity and minor breakdowns of new equipment and software they've mentioned which will also reduce capacity.
My guess would be BA aren't yet getting the forecast productivity out of the baggage handlers who moved from T1 which is causing them to cancel 15-20% of flights. They probably don't have enough extra people with security clearance to throw at the problem, so somehow they have to cure the glitches and cut the average time it takes to 'process' a bag. Or they have to rapidly recruit more people and take the hit on the bottom line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOH
Well BA and BAA, why aren't you making that happen???? - it is inexcusable to have long queues with security lanes and scanners not operating
Since T5 is running at, say, 1/3rd of the design capacity they ought not to need all the scanners to be working. Maybe some staff are expected to move from T4 (good luck SkyTeam!) but these queues again seem to be a sign that the productivity gains are not being realized yet. Part of it could be that the regular travellers are not yet familiar with the slightly different procedures.
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"Staff shortages" seem to represent a spectacular planning failure to me by both BA and BAA. With all the publicity of the problems on Thursday and Friday I was astonished to read of some FT'ers experiences this morning stating that there were queues at check-in, security, FCC etc - but only half the lanes / scanners open. One of the main publicity thrusts from both BAA and BA pre-T5 opening was that queues would be a thing of the past.
Well BA and BAA, why aren't you making that happen???? - it is inexcusable to have long queues with security lanes and scanners not operating
Utter TOTFO
I quite agree - it seems increasingly apparent that the ongoing delays and reduced ops are due to the fact that the full operation cannot be handled by the number of staff on the ground - this is simply not just about the baggage situation any more. As I said in my post last night, I sat and watched two planes hold short of the south gates for 20 minutes while I was in the lounge. Even more bemusing is the fact that the scanners and boarding pass check desks are not manned properly - BA are moving ops but BAA surely have to keep the security going in terminals 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well as man terminal 5! You need more staff!!
BA - tell us what is going on! How was this ever going to work if you've not staffed and trained the staff for the terminal properly?
What's going on? Does anyone actually know? Why so many cancellations?
I ask again -what is the problem? No information is being given, but more flights are being cancelled. If they would just say WHAT the issues are and WHAT they are doing about it, but cancelling this number of flights -making it a week of disruption, is not acceptable, I'm sorry, but it's not.
What is going on at BA?
Too many people thrown into unfamiliar circumstances in too narrow a timespan. Staff only really start to learn the new way of things when they are doing it for real - not on some trial. Customers plus staff thrust together in an alien environment is obviously not going to run like clockwork. I can just imagine staff currently working their socks off to try to become more productive, efficient and relaxed - just like the first time driving a car, you believe it will never be possible to coordinate all those little tasks which seemed so daunting at the time.
Yes, there are some fundamental flaws in processes in T5. However, when all the shifts are a couple of weeks downstream, they will be walking around with heads held high, proud of their achievements (and exteremely pissed off that their management allowed them to fall head first into a quagmire on day one)
