Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
It is all about staffing.
To cope effectively and provide decent service during disruption you need enough empowered staff to sort things out and really help passengers.
BA's cost saving cuts bite here in 2 ways. Firstly they barely have enough staff to run the operation in sunny let alone cloudy skies. Secondly BA has deliberately chosen to take away staff discretion to stop staff doing the decent thing (e.g. Interline reroutes, booking convenient hotels etc.) so a staff based which is tightly stretched in normal operations is completely unable to provide decent assistance during IRROPS and that is by cost saving design to save money on Interline costs to save money on airport/ticketing staffing, to save money on subsistence claims and to save money on hotel costs.
None of this is an accident it is a deliberate and well thought out design. It doesn't sit easily with the pretence of providing high levels of service "to fly to serve" or effectively looking after premium passengers.
Agree with the sentiment, and agree that its an execution issue.
- Phone lines are consistently not staffed for irrops, even expected disruption, even GGL
- Staff would nt be needed if the IT was any good. But its hopeless. BA's under spend here hurts because it seems incapable of the automated re-booking Delta achieves, and does consistently well.
what this seems to imply is:
1. IF YOU REALLY HAVE TO BE THERE ON TIME, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHOOSE ANOTHER AIRLINE
2. IF YOU NEED TO CONNECT USING BA/LHR, YOU SHOULD FIND AN ALTERNATIVE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW YOU GET THERE ON YOUR PLANNED DAY/TIME.
3. NEVER EVER EVER CHECK BAGGAGE ON BA. FROM EXPERIENCE, IT IS A LOTTERY IF IT GETS THERE.
4. IF IT IS WINDY, RAINS, SNOWS, IS A BIT FOGGY, OR JUST NOT 'BLUE SKIES' EXPECT TO BE DELAYED/CANCELLED
5. DON'T ASSUME SPECIAL SERVICES IN THE CCR WILL HELP EITHER. MIXED EXPERIENCES WITH THAT TOO.
6. DON'T RELY ON BA TO INTERLINE YOU TO ANOTHER AIRLINE
If time does n't matter, you have no checked baggage and can afford the cash flow of buying another ticket and/or hotel, then BA is fine.