Stages of a disrupted service (irrop) - for the edification of those who are intrigued about such things!
Work in progress - updates to follow - current status: stranded in a 4 star hotel in Bermuda.
[See post 24 for a further thrilling installment]
Background:
BA 2232 BDA-LGW, 19 July 2015, 777 operated by G-VIIW, then connecting on to NCL on 20 July 2015. Scheduled departure 20:20. CW full, 8 in First, WT and WTP about two thirds full. I guess around 190 passengers. I'm in First (opup). Bermuda is 4 hours behind British Summer Time, 1 hour ahead of Eastern.
19:50 - boarding starts - fairly impressive given the inbound service was 15 minutes late arriving at 18:45
20:10 - boarding complete. BDA is one of those places where there are steps all the way up the 777 from the apron. It's quite impressive seeing the whole beast on its own from ground level.
20:15 - On time pushback and the aircraft toddles over to the end of the runway.
20:30 - Captain comes on to the PA to say that they are having problems with both of the weather radars.
20:40 - we pull off the main runway to allow the last inbound American services to land. We park up alongside the main runway.
20:50 - Captain says he has spoken to London, tried their suggestions, now it is time to get the engineers in to look at it.
21:00 - Get to stand, doors open, Heavens open, soaked engineers run up and down. Cone gets removed, computers get swapped around. Captain makes regular progress reports, cabin crew try to make themselves busy serving drinks.
22:30 - Captain announces the service is cancelled. He says some spare parts are needed, hopefully they can come from New York in the morning. He says ground staff will handle accommodation and rebooking. He recognises that the rebooking side is what everyone now wants to know (most people on board will be residents so have accommodation) but he says he can only pass that on to the ground staff to deal with.
22:45 - We are allowed to reenter Bermuda without passport checks (minor miracle in itself!).
23:00 - By the carousels, I am one of the few without checked luggage or duty frees, so I'm first out. The BA ground staff are by the carousels, about 6 of them, with the manifests. I immediately get 2 chits for taxis and told to go to the Grotto Bay Hotel, which is about a mile from the airport. Expensive 4 star holiday resort, I've been there before - traditional long house with outlying villas and beachside facilities. Very efficiently handled by the ground staff, who were well organised.
23:05 - By being first out I get a taxi nearly immediately, driver is happy to work off the chits.
23:10 - Get to hotel. There is a good double room overlooking the beach, but no food available at all until breakfast (grrr since I was keeping some space for the First meal, but it's probably best for me).
23:30 - Get on to BA.com, I've been auto rebooked on to the next day's service, can't OLCI or see seats, but I was expecting that. The original service just says delayed without further information. My MMB therefore has original service, next day's service and two LHR-NCL bookings, all out of sequence. BA.com is a lot easier to understand than the App, which suffers from less tabular presentation.
23:35 - Ring Manchester to see if they can get me to NCL sooner, agent checks various options, answer: no, unless the original service gets reinstated sooner, so the advice is to check BA.com in the morning. Unless there was a very early service to JFK or BOS I knew this was the outcome since the rest of the trans Atlantic services go overnight. There is a United service from EWR to NCL but that wasn't offered, and I wasn't really expecting that. I would save a few hours but give me an awkward journey to EWR.
00:00 - Off to bed.
06:30 - Up and about. This is the view from my bedroom window.
That tail fin on the horizon above is actually my stricken service, so I can watch what is going on with any repairs from the bedroom, how very handy!
07:00 BA.com says I'm still on the scheduled 20 July service, with the 19 July service showing simply as "delayed".
07:30 - Breakfast at the hotel, rather a good one even by my Hilton led standards! It turns out that the last passenger to arrive at the hotel got there "well past midnight", mainly due to a lack of taxis by the time checked baggage and duty frees were dealt with.
09:00 - BA.com now shows the 19 July service as having a departure time of 21:50 today (usual departure time 20:20). So it looks like they are expecting the inbound service to have the relevant spare parts and for it to be swapped over in a few hours. Ring Manchester: quite a long call, but at my request they rebooked me to the original service, despite the fact that it will run later, and will ask BDA to handle the reticketing. My reasoning being that the today's scheduled service is likely to be packed whereas the original service is likely to lightly loaded and only gets to LGW a little bit later. I'm completely unbothered by the LHR NCL aspect, there are plenty of services there.
09:30 - BA.com now doesn't show a time for the original service, merely "delayed overnight". Clearly a fast moving situation, I decide to check it once an hour henceforth. I waddle up to reception to ask for a late check-out, no dice!
Findings so far:
1) HBO, oh yes!
2) BDA is very efficient with irrops, perhaps from practice. My original service to BDA a week ago was also cancelled.
3) BA.com is actually very helpful, so long as you interpret it a bit. The same information is also in the App, but the screen refresh delays and layout could give the wrong impression as to what is going on. Though I have access to the skilled staff at Manchester, I could just about have managed with BA.com alone.
4) It's actually a return service originating from BDA, in that I am due to go back via LGW to BDA in a week. So I've made a mental note to check I'm fully ticketed in a few days time.