Originally Posted by
Dave_C
Very interesting post, but from what I understand, BA at T5 is the only airport, and the only terminal in the world that operates this system? We've had T5 for roughly 15 years now and it hasn't even been adopted in T3. Why? If it's so amazing and great at improving the operational efficiency surely someone else would have taken the idea and used it elsewhere? In fifteen years? No?
In precise terms, LHR T5 is unique, but I think the short version of
obitmic's reply is "you're going to end up with some system or other, and all systems have issues". The AA door close brutalism would not necessarily have helped the OP. I think there is a fair point that when BA moved from T1 to T5, timekeeping dramatically improved, and pre-pandemic BA at T3 had poorer time. Timekeeping in the T1 set up was off the scale dreadful. I'm sure Conformance had a part to play in that improvement, but equally Conformance is less effective when everything is late, it's not agile enough. When it gets really bad BA does have the option to switch off Conformance all together. The core issue, therefore, is shoddy timekeeping and post Pandemic BA (and many other airlines) hasn't done well So far today BA is doing better than most recent days, with something like 82% On Time Departures, and 66% On Time Arrivals, but even that is well below the 2019 typical figures. Virgin, the second largest airline at LHR, has similar figures to BA at the moment.