Originally Posted by
rweintra
I reminded him that the 757s on this route fly a modified business class that has an extra seat on the right side of the aircraft. They usually don't fill that seat on some flights, and he told me that he wouldn't fill those seats as it wouldn't be fair to the business class passengers who had booked on the next flights coming up that day.
What on earth are you on about? Club Europe on the 757 is 2-3 format. BA certainly can and do sell AND fill the middle seats (unlike, say, LH). They don't even have a policy of blocking them out if the loads are light. If you're talking about turning the whole plane in to a 3-3 (e.g. Domestic/all economy) format then I guess he's right. Not fair to the CE pax on the 2 side with the collapsed (never sold or used) middle 'seat' (it really ceases to be a seat since it's too small to fit in). Plus the further delay to re-configure that flight's cabin.
Originally Posted by
rweintra
As the plane landed, we taxiied to the first open gate at the first terminal we could see.
Errm...
Originally Posted by
rweintra
Stairs were driven over and we deplaned onto two buses that took us right to immigration at terminal 1. The Captain didn't wait for an open gate, or to go to the terminal we were supposed to be at.
Do you have any idea how the airport works?! Do you honestly think they just parked up randomly in order to get two busses out for your own personal oh-so-important connection to a competitor airline?!
There are remote stands. There are busses. It's no surprise. You did go to the terminal you were supposed to be at, just via bus.
You simply got 'lucky' that it worked quickly. Many, many times on here you'll see complaints about the remote stands because you land, wait ages for stairs, wait ages for busses, take a tour of the bowels of LHR on the drive to immigration, etc.
Originally Posted by
rweintra
He made it work for his customers.
Other than being polite and jovial with you, he did nothing special I'm betting. If pilots really get to randomly park up on a whim and magic up stairs and busses in an instant, one might like to raise questions why this doesn't happen more often.
Originally Posted by
rweintra
I will be sending a letter to BA about this situation and about a couple more people that were involved with all of the confusion, but I just wanted to give Flyertalkers a little taste.
Good luck with that. Or you could just file it under "sh!t happens". If the aircraft couldn't take off - something the crew verified with the home base so it wasn't their decision - then there's not a lot you could do, or have done for you. I'd just count yourself very lucky you got rebooked on the earlier flight...and spare a thought for the pax that didn't. I can but hope the reason for this was not your nasty little rude rant at the ground-staff, but that they simply tried to rebook pax with connections first.
A bizarre situation for sure. A ridiculous OTT reaction peppered with ill-informed jabbering for sure too.