Originally Posted by
Dave Noble
There is nothing to indicate that the airline cannot generally operate it on time - flight delays do happen and if half an hour delay is going to be a major issue, then it seems sensible to plan for an earlier option. No different to other planning to allow time for delays - if someone posted that they missed their intended busienss meeting due to a 35 minute delay, I suspect a similar recommendation may well be made by many
agreed but anecdotally and in my own personal experience, arriving after 8pm is a gamble in terms of where you will end up and in my own lived experience I have not had a post 8pm arrival from Glasgow, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh or Paris arrive within 15 mins of the the STA for well over a year now.
Originally Posted by
GumshoeW12
As far as I can see on Realtimetrains, there were later trains to Paddington at 2342, 2357 and 0007 last night. Might one of those not worked for you?
This may be true but BAs poor operational performance impacts people going elsewhere. If going West there are few if any options. I am fortunate, I get picked up or park but I can empathise with those who get stuck. BA arrived me in Oslo earlier this year more than 2 hrs late and it costs about £100 for the taxi.
Originally Posted by
AJA_
[MENTION=203415]binman[/MENTION] I think your suggestion of not scheduling a flight at all if BA can't run it on time is even less helpful.
I would rather have the option of a late night arrival that might occasionally be 35 minutes late than no late night flight. In my case I pre-book a cab so don't rely on the tube anyway. If BA followed your suggestion I wouldn't be catered for.
If you have a risk of missing the last tube into London and that is a major concern for you then you shouldn't book that flight. We don't know where OP was flying from so perhaps the earlier flight was too early but then you need to weigh up the risk of missing the public transport connection against choosing a flight that arrives much earlier or not.
Same decision to be made with a connecting flight at LHR which has just announced it is increasing its MCT to 75 minutes. That still sn't long enough for me so I'd choose a flight which gives me at least 3 hours to make the connection. YMMV.
your last point isn’t relevant. If BA arrive late on a legal connection that’s on them and there are financial penalties.
If however your content to accept sub optimal performance as experienced by the OP, that’s fine!