Originally Posted by
Bluekjp
Booked an out and back to AMS this morning to give my young nephew a ride on a Dreamliner in flat beds. Very late last night the aircraft was substituted to an A320 and new boarding cards sent out. Once onboard and doors closed we were told that we'll be parking in a quiet corner of Heathrow somewhere and will wait 2.5 hours before we can take off, due to blustery conditions in AMS and hence larger separations for landing aircraft. BA crew superb with refreshments.
All in a day's travelling and can't be helped. No complaints from us, although wouldn't have boarded had we been told of delay before stepping on to the aircraft. Presuming perhaps that when BA got wind (excuse pun) of the weather delays last night they didn't want to tie up a 787 for half the day. Fair dinkum.
We finally turned round, very efficiently, in 50 minutes with a full load and leaving behind some overbooked passengers due to the very last minute downgrade of a busy 787-9 to the A320 and so clawed back 40 minutes of the delay as the 787 would have had a 90 minute turnaround. However, at LHR we were directed to gate 509 and watched the aircraft thereon push back only for its Mototok to break down, and seemingly the replacement Mototok too. We taxied off awaiting another free gate which meant another 1 hour 20 onboard to add to the 2.30 hours onboard on the outbound. The BA crew were top, top throughout and extremely apologetic and accommodating throughout even though it wasn't in their hands to fix. I was sat next to the repositioning BA Cityflyer crew including pilot of the 16.40 LCY/RTM today. With doors opening at 3.14 they would have had their work cut out to get across today's gridlocked roads in the rush hour period. I see that it departed around 2 hours late, perhaps partly due to weather.
It was just one of those days.