Originally Posted by
WHBM
Not having all the documentation in place before starting to taxi was a brilliant
idea by someone at Waterworld to minimise dispatcher costs. The details for flights from overseas stations are calculated somewhere remote (Germany ?) and SatPhone transmitted to the flight deck after pushback and during taxi. However, if a problem is found (nobody of course envisaged this when the system was "sold" to BA management) then it takes an age to sort out, as you experienced.
Passport checks in the airbridge are to overcome yet another passport fraud that has been discovered by those seeking to fiddle their way into the UK.
The JNB flight would be controlled from LHR from a load control perspective.
It is not very often that what the OP experienced happens. Sending the final loadsheet to the flight deck via Acars allows for the doors to be shut sooner and for the aircraft to push back and get its self in the queue to take off.
At busy airports this can make a major difference to when the aircraft gets airbourne. Therefore hopefully the flight gets to its destination on time.
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