BicesterTerrier

I should have known that, schoolboy mistake, forgive me, I'm new to this place!

Seshman

Rookie error ...

bazim

Hi everyone, here is a photo of the stricken plane in JNB, still having work being done to it, on Sunday midday when were flying to HRE.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/39760314@N06/5596937905/

Sorry not avery good photo.

Petrus

linenbasket: please do let us know how this develops. If what you are saying is true, blimey!

leaveamessage

Petrus...all true, and will do
Very long letter + out of pocket expenses claim being sent to ba today detailing loads of issues I havent mentioned here.
Have had no contact from customer relations, despite assurances by the awful ground staff that they would be pro-actively contacting people from the flights.

Oh, and the final cherry on the cake, the suitcase was smashed/cracked upon arrival at LHR.
Brilliant.
Reminds me why i havent checked a bag in for about 4 yrs (it was full of the wifes stuff who doesnt compute the concept of carry on only/only one pair of stilletos )

bazim thanks for the photo... faulty engine was the outer engine on the other side of the aircraft (#1 engine I think?)

Seshman

Slightly OT, but if memory serves me right, there is the last 747 that is in the guise of SAA. They have either sold off or sent back the others. This one, however is not in use. They did use it for a short period for the Nigeria route.

TropicalTripper

That's likely a photo of ZS-SAZ (Name: Imonti) from Lagos to JNB and back. They retired their last two 744s towards the end of October. In fact I was supposed to be on 340s for both flights, but they pushed back the retirement by a few weeks. The other 744 was all-white with no titles. Not sure of the tail number on that one. I sat upstairs with a window exit row on both flights and I'll be damned if that wasn't the best economy class seat I've sat in in my million plus miles of flying. Unlimited leg room, no protruding slide back and a locker big enough for my carry-on right next to my seat. The plane was a little worse for wear though.

I read who the planes were sold to (or perhaps leased to), but I forget and I can't find it online.

Land-of-Miles

The words BA CR and proactive don't offer feature in the same sentence in my experience

Given that BA is an EU airline, flying you back to an EU destination wasn't this an EU Passenger rights issue? So you could rebook yourself and demand repayment (after possibly a little light court action)? Dire threats of there being no refunds surely are designed to stop passengers doing this by sowing doubt about their eventual reimbursement.

As to local norms of Customer Service, whilst I would accept that ZA is not high up the LoM table of great customer service examples, surely the easiest thing for the local staff to do would have been to book those impacted on alternate flights. This would involves some work but once done it is done, the alternative of having to accomodate passengers and then effectively transfer them over from the impacted flight, keep them informed of developments and deal with constant queries and bolshy passengers seems far more difficult to me. Either the local ground staff were heavily ahem "incentivised" not to reroute passengers or were directly told not to by HQ.

I don't know about what happens now but 10 years ago BA had well planned incident management capability to deal with major incidents (EPIC) and major operational issues (OPIC IIRC), both supported by some full time staff and a large group of volunteers. The aim being to give remote reinforcement to local stations which are not staffed to cope with serious incidents. In these situations all operational decisions were taken from London and not by the station.

So I would suggest that the odds of the poor experience you received being entirely down to the local station I would suggest are very low. In any event "cultural issues" aside BA station managers are frequently UK Expats and should know better than to "go native" with local customs.

Seshman

My father had the opportunity of flying in some of the SAA 747 fleet before he retired. His sentiments were the same as yours - the best economy seat he had ever flown!!! In this day in age it seems ludacris to put economy up top... I heard the reson for them still using the 747's for the Lagos route was because there was still a high demand for premium seats. Weren't SAA leasing a couple of the 747's in the first place?

Seshman

Here we go: They had a number of 747-2, 3 and 400 series. They had 8 744.
ZS SAK
SAX
SAY are all used by Wells Fargo Bank Northwest

ZS SAV
SAW are with Cathay Pacific

ZS SBK
SBS are used by Transaero Airlines

Oddly though, ZS SAZ (Imonti) is still marked as active, but we know that isn't the case anymore.

flyer16

The plane is back in service heading out to JFK yesterday. It came back from JNB empty last week.

bubu-SNA

Had an RTO with multiple blown tires on a Delta 767 in leaving ACC to JFK back in the summer of 09. Nose was in the air I believe, rear wheels still on the ground and the pilot slammed it back down...not gently. Damaged the nose landing gear...delta stranded me in Accra for 3 days. No other Skyteam airline flew in to ACC at the time so Delta would only re-route me on another airline (LH) in coach when I had a business class ticket (with no fare refund). They refused to off-load luggage for 2 days due to the risk of the plane "tipping" over...direct quote. Someone else said it was because of security reasons. Who the hell really knows. Turned out some engine flap did not close on take-off or something a rather. Ended up with a $500 e-cert as an "i'm sorry"...

I have no idea how they got the plane fixed, it had structural damage and ACC does not have the expertise or facilities...plane was still on the tarmac 3 days later when Delta finally got another aircraft out there for all the stranded passengers. RTO's are scary and I'd not wish em on anybody...much less a less seasoned traveler.

EuropeanPete

Maybe that and because they have joker airlines operating out of JNB like Namibian Airlines?

TootingBull

Just went through the thread as have finally decided to give up with BA Customer Service after 5 letters and 6 months.

50.5 hour delay and 10,000 airmiles as compensation (in CW). Got 775k of the blighters so that really doesn't seem very reasonable. An utter shambles, a dangerous one at that.

The best thing is that apparently the engine failed a few weeks later in India according to one member of staff I flew with a couple of months later

smckay

I dont think it counts as a proper RTO - but just had my first mishap at the start of the journey (plenty at the arriving end!)

At the top of the runway the captain announced an issue would mean returning to the stand; of course we had to travel the runway to get back to the stand but other than that it was quite uneventful.

The gent next to me was huffing and puffing so I asked if he'd prefer the captain just took the chance, he mumbled some agreement and went quiet!