Just back from the USA I was due to return to MAN on BD706 yesterday but due to thunderstorms in Chicago I missed the connection from my UA/Ted flight from Orlando.

There were a total of 18 passengers connecting on this flight but BMI made no efforts to hold the plane or provide any suitable alternative flights home (I can totally understand them not holding the plane due to making their connections in MAN).

I was lucky, I made it to the Red Carpet Club in T1 Chicago where a fantastic UA rep spoke to the BMI representative in T5 who informed her that I was re-booked on the BD706 the next day! She took one look at my face and said that is not suitable and then said that I would not go over to T5 to see BMI (I had said nothing!) she then got the BMI rep to issue a re-booking code and she booked me onto the UA 938 to LHR connecting on the BD588. To top off this fantastic service she said that I was now booked in D class (I was traveling in BMI business class) and that I could upgrade to first using one of my SWV - perfect.

On the BD flight to MAN the flight was full of people who should have flown on the BMI Toronto flight that was cancelled yesterday and had to re-route through LHR.

This is my problem, with BMI flying only one plane on these routes and no true customer service in the USA they are compromised on their service and unfortunately I will not be using their excellent service again.

They need to decide what market they want to serve business or pleasure and with the introduction of the LAS and Caribbean flights it looks like they are after the pleasure markets. To encourage more high revenue business people they should run the ORD flight back later at 9.30pm so you can get a full days work in that day or make later connections before flying home and scrap the LAS flight and run it to DEN instead so they can use this true UA hub for connections

BD definitely is not very good at creating contingency plans if things mess up and don't CNX. The UA agent is right -- waiting 24 hours for the next flight when there are plenty of alternatives available is quite pathetic.

My experience on YYZ-MAN and return was that they got everything wrong that they could and they had no back-up. AC has given up this route to BMI and kept it as a codeshare within *A. The transatlantic run requires more competence and experience and commitment to service. Your incident is in accord with mine but the outcome is more positive. I don't think they should concentrate in mainline transatlantic for such a small fleet - even the charters are better. BA or Virgin deserve the routing.

Not sure what you mean by BA or VS 'deserve' the routing ??. If they wanted it I'm sure they could have it. As for charters being better than BD....

BA have little or no interest in long-haul services from MAN, the only one they operate (JFK) isn't even run by BA mainline, it's run by BACX subsidiary.

What a terrible shame.

On one hand, you have trip reports telling of the exemplary service on board (particularly in the business). On the other, you get the impression that there are some big holes when it comes to contingency.

This seems to be symptomatic of BD's general problem (as I see it) at the moment: it doesn't appear to know where it's headed. Is it competing with LCCs or FSCs? It can offer a leisure service, sure, but does it have the backup to do business services? Sure, domestically and DUB/CDG/AMS/BRU - but how many airlines and rail services are already offering those? Why does it choose Knock and Groningen for regional routes?

The same applies to the transatlantic services. YYZ, ORD, IAD - big *A hubs, makes sense. LAS and the Carribean? Come on, BD can do better than charter services. Well, if the connections in MAN were better. And they had the contingency. Yup, I'm sure they'd love to operate out of LHR. But if they're stuck with MAN, they need to make the most of it.

The term 'schizophrenic route policy' has been used here before.

It's a shame. I've been nothing but impressed by BD since I switched, and seeing as the bulk of my travel is LHR-AMS/CDG, the routes suit me fine (and *A covers the LHR-VIE and indirect LHR to Central Europe trips I do quite often too). I really hope they get this sorted out. I would not like to see this airline go down the pan.

The weak link appears to be the ground staff in the US. As far as I can tell, UA basically does the ground handling at ORD and IAD, with AC providing this at YYZ. If BD had some of their own staff (not just a station manager but a gew front line staff too) then the attitude might improve.

As far as the delays and cancellations go, I agree that having a small fleet is not ideal, but VS often seems just as stretched. This has also been a terrible week for delays etc - look over at the BA forum and you will see that BA were unable to find a replacement aircraft for several hours for a MIA flight. It seems that even a large fleet size cannot really save you in these situations.

BTW, the call centre staff for BD in the States could not be more different from the ground staff - genuinely nice people who go out of their way to be helpful, at least in my experience.

The lesson to learn here is to ensure that you book the flights under the UA or AC codeshare so that you have more, easier fall back options if / when things start going wrong.

I agree.

Mainly by accident, all my BD trans-atlantic runs have been booked on UA tickets. So, when I missed the BD705 having come in very late from ATL due to bad weather, I was re-booked instantly via LHR on UA without even having to push. And I had no status (BD or UA) at the time and was flying coach.

However, with BD and UA codesharing on the MAN-IAD/ORD routes, and their common *A membership, rebooking passengers (where possible) onto UA in the even of a muck-up really ought to be routine?

Phil.

Ought is the keyword here. Even with delayed baggage, they ought to route them through LHR or somewhere else so that they arrive a heck of a lot sooner -- and not put on the same flight 24 hours later...