8420PR

Sometimes you have to take a bit of responsibility yourselves and use some initiative:
Getting to GIB faster: If you need to get there fast then you can hire a car (cheaply) to the border or take a taxi (expensively).
Water & Refreshments: You were in AGP airport for a couple of hours - plenty of water and food available.

BA are not innocent here at all - they could easily have provided a much better service but have obviously decided against sustaining the higher costs (e.g. providing separate faster arrangements for CE passengers, staff available at AGP in case of a divert, refreshments available etc), which is a clear business decision.

CallBell

WRT the fueling... Aircraft are refueled from the right hand side. Perhaps the tanker you saw was not there to service your aircraft and thus might explain why you think it took so long.

David-A

OK, with 25+ years experience flying to GIB some clarifications:

Firstly, the fuel weight was not the problem with trying to fly to GIB again. Indeed, if they were refueling as a priority, it suggests they were about to consider doing just that.

I can tell you for fact, even if the divert is known about long in advance, the aircraft landing at AGP will be UNDERFUELED (by that point) to allow it to take off again. That is why when (for Spanish political reasons) the diverts used to have to go to Tangiers/etc first (which is nearer than AGP, just on the wrong continent) first before flying to AGP, job 1 was getting some fuel to fly to AGP.

[Have you ever seen a pilot paying for fuel with a manual imprint credit card machine, I have! - Or the fuel guy refusing that and everybody onboard having a whipround?]

Following a package of tripartite agreements between the three governments (UK, Spain and Gibraltar), diverts are now allowed to be direct back and foruth between Gib and Spanish airports.

[However, as bealine says, the real people who loose out are people who don't have Schengen entry visas. HOWEVER, supposedly the Spanish border guards at AGP have full powers of disgression under the schengen argeement to do this on the spot (issue transit visa's etc) in the case of diverts, etc. However, Spain is holding out on doing this EU norm probably because she want's to see if she can get anything for it in return.]

Next, on the timings, you say you landed at 12:32, and the two coaches to GIB did not leave AGP until 14:45.
Was 1232 the time you actually landed, or when you were fully on stand and disembarking? Did you have luggage to collect? Are you reasonable mobile? [And I assume you were amung the first off in CE?]
People will have to reclaim their luggage in AGP, so it would probably be 13:30 at best before you would be ready to depart.

Next on lack of information and refreshments. This is a real problem.
Please do complain about this.
Nobody (crew included) seem to ever explain to passengers who are not familiar with the process how things work. [i.e. that they need to proced through the airport as normal, and find the coach outside.] - this confusion also adds to the delays.

Indeed, I've had many a concerned crew (not knowing what to tell the pax, ask me how it works! - and thouse are the only times any annoucment has ever been made that I have witnessed.
As for food and drink, on the 3 times in the last 10 years that I can recall food ever being provided, it was all meat - as a veggie in CE I wasn't happy.
Staff at AGP never seem to be told what is happening either. So they just shrug their shoulders when people at baggage reclaim as what to do now.
Please do complain about information and referesments.
And possibly time, particularly as a consequence.
I'd suggest you keep sending it to BA, however please consider also copying in GibAir (the ground agents in Gibraltar - they are what remain of GB Airways in the Bland group!) and also the Government of Gibraltar's Director of Civil Aviation.

However, make these constructive comunications.

Beyond the lack of info, and 'possibly' the lack of refresments, you don't really have a complaint about anything else.

BA were dammed if they did, dammed if they didn't. Many times you could wait and the weather won't clear. Each airline made a call, and then had to stick to it.

As for whether the coachs come from GIB - AGP - GIB, or AGP-GIB-AGP, or GIB-AGP + AGP-GIB crossing over, all I can say is it varies.
One of the main factors is when the diversion is knwon about.
If it is only once the aircraft is close to GIB, then passengers will be bussed GIB-AGP straight away (unless they airline says it wants to try waiting at AGP).
If however it is known about early, then the passengers at Gib won't have finished checking in / arriving when the inboud flight lands at AGP. So inbound pax will be bussed first AGP-GIB (coaches might have come from GIB earlier and empty to do this, or been sourced in Spain).

However, what I can tell you is the most depressing, is when you land in AGP early, and the coaches are waiting and you get bussed AGP-GIB, but once you have left, the weather then improves and the aircraft flys (empty) AGP-GIB to pick people up and is sitting there (or already departed) just when you arrive.

The trip AGP-GIB can be done on public transport also, but would have taken the same overall time. Main routes are: AGP-Marbella (express bus), Marbella-La Linea (bus with a couple of stops). Or AGP-Fuengirola (train), Fuengirola-La Linea (bus with a couple of stops - include Marbella). Depending on time of day (and with the wait time for the connects) this can take anything from 2.5 hours to 5 hours.

As for other options for CE, you were delayed enroute as a flight, as the flight needed to divert. BA got you there. I think your only compaints are really information and possible food and drink. [With timing improvements possibly being possible.]

NFH

Thanks for all the very useful and informative replies. One thing I forgot to mention is that the flight was around 45 minutes late leaving LHR because there was a delay in carrying out security checks on the aircraft after it had been sitting at LHR overnight, and the ground staff also had trouble finding buses to take us from the gate to the aircraft. Therefore one could argue that the diversion to AGP would not have taken place without these initial failures by BA at LHR.

Yes, they read out a list of at least 20 passengers who were in this position and asked them to remain on the aircraft while the rest of the passengers got off. The captain warned those passengers not to get off and go through immigration as "you will be fined". I think he meant that BA would be fined!

Because we didn't know how long we'd be waiting, and nobody told us we would have no later opportunity to obtain refreshments. Most of the time was spent finding baggage trolleys and waiting for baggage. As soon as the baggage arrived, the IB ground staff woman asked everyone not to disappear and to follow her shortly to the buses, which we all did. There was no opportunity to buy food or drink. Also, many passengers may not have had EUR cash, only GBP cash, as we were flying between two GBP-based jurisdictions. Given that this diversion is a regular occurence, BA should have an established source at AGP of packaged meals for this scenario. There must be several suppliers of suitable meals at an airport like AGP, even if only snacks, that could be given out to passengers in these circumstances.

Well I actually enjoy flying BA. It's just that on this occasion, I felt the service was below the usual high standards that I have become accustomed to on BA.

No, it was definitely being refuelled from the left, because I watched the whole thing from seat 4A, including the captain telling the tanker driver what to do. The pipe was going from the tanker into the wing for at least half an hour.

I tried this while I was looking for baggage trolleys but I couldn't find a car hire firm with anything big enough for all our baggage, only horrible little super-minis.

flygirl68

I've only seen ours refuelled on the left....................

HIDDY

Depends on which side the fuel cap is on.

flygirl68

Ha! Oh yes, very good point!

David-A

No, I don't think you can really.

While they may have happened sequentially, the divert is not really a consequnce of the delay (unless the weather forecast was known or predictable). [And depending upon what the bad weather was, if it was due within the original hour of landing they wouldn't have even landed to avoid getting stuck.]

Though you could certainly legitimatly say 45 minutes of the total delay was due to this.

pinkcat

Just to clarify
In my experience, there is some "inkling" that there will be landing problems, if you cant see the rock or you cant see the runway from the rock,the coach company is 100 yards away on the other side of the road, so they arrive quickly 15 mins is an estimate, but it is lightning quick, the journey time can be 3 hours to AGP
.........which is particularly inconvenient on New years eve when you could have been home and drinking by then!

B747-437B

Containerised aircraft are generally fuelled on the left and bulk loaded aircraft are generally fuelled on the right.

Globaliser

Do Savile Row tailors know that?

bealine

Tailors aren't generally bothered about where one is fuelled, they are more concerned with the outflow!

heartybob

Surely you mean stowage of the outflow device?

Smirnoff

It's a GIB thing. Count yourself lucky, on one of my flights to GIB a few years back, we circled for half hour or so above GIB waiting for th fog to clear, then diverted to TNG, and sat there for 2 hours while they filed a flight plan from TNG-AGP (it was not permitted to divert from GIB-AGP). Then we flew back up (past GIB) to AGP and landed about 4 hours late and waited a good hour or so for bags, alongside hundreds of chavs off the charters. There was no sign of any assistance or coaches or anything, so we took a taxi, and arrived at GIB some 7 hours later than planned. One of those things.

NFH

The coaches had Spanish number plates if that suggests the answer. Given that someone said that the coaches leave GIB within 15 minutes of the diversion being announced, it would be difficult to find coaches from Spain to cross into Gibraltar with such little notice to pick up passengers.