stranded33

Wow, I am 47 and have been flying around for the past 25 or so, and this has never happened to me before anywhere. Am flying to Cape Town through London with BA, and the flight from Paris is delayed by 20 mn. The staff at the gate and in the plane assure me my connecting flight to the Cape will wait for me (and another passenger). as we land into London with over 30 mn to connect within Terminal 5, I am told s-o is waiting to help accelerate my transfer. When we meet this person at the exit of the plane though, she tells us there is no sufficient time to connect and that our boarding passes are not valid anymore as our names have been removed from the passenger list while we were crossing the channel. The only connection which is offered to me makes me miss 2 of the 3 long-planned client meetings that I was going to the Cape for. All attempts to convince the BA staff to let me at least walk to the gate, which I could do in 15 mn, only meet the kind of indifferent stubborness that I thought until now you could only observe at tim in former communist countries. The only certain thing is that this is my last time to use BA if I can avoid it. My next flights to South Africa will be through Frankfurt...

Oxon Flyer

Welcome to Flyertalk and the BA forum stranded33. Sorry to hear of your misconnect.

Rather than resurrect a very old thread (which was last posted to in the era before T5 was built), I've moved your post to a new thread within the forum.

Just to help our posters help you, I'm curious, what was the advertised connection time between your flights ?

G-BOAC

Looking at ba.com my guess would be BA315 from CDG connecting to BA59 to CPT. BA315 is meant to land 18:25 and BA59 departs 19:30 so a 1:05 connection.

Today, BA315 landed 18:58.

I think the Intl-Intl T5 MCT is 1 hour so this is, according to BA, a legal connection. Not one I'd ever book personally, but legal for BA.

PotNoodle

EDIT: Thats good, now I have more sympathy for him Coldwalker.

BA looked to have been very foolish by doing this and you should complain. However you are not blameless with such a tight (maybe even illegal!) connection.

It will be interesting to see how long your connection time was, your flight was delayed by 20 mins and you only had 30 mins left at T5? That makes it 50 mins and sounds like an illegal connection. Even if it was a legal connection you should leave at least 2 hours when connecting to a long-haul plane especially at winter in a congested airport.

Could you not suggest n LHR-JNB-CPT flight connecting onto BA subsidairy Comair at Johnnesburg?

ColdWalker

Congratulations on your first moderation in BAFT Oxon Flyer

Welcome to the forum Stranded33. Do i sense a little frustration?

Not sure there is anything we can do to help. I suspect you just needed to air your annoyance, but if there is something you need advice on maybe you could clarify along with your planned connection time?

I assume you will be complaining to BA if you had a valid connect?


To be fair the title was not the OP's choice. It was lifted from the original old thread that he/she posted into.

BugAlugs

I recently had a 1hr 25min connection from BRU through T5 onto MIA for a journey.
I was 30mins late leaving BRU.
There was someone waiting for me and the bright orange EXPRESS CONNECTIONS folder had various staff motivating me along to the conformance check.
I managed to make it to the conformance and visa check at T-minus 53mins to my flight.
I knew that at T-35mins to flight I would not be granted access to my flight and rebooked.
It was too close for me so I've learnt to bank at least 2 hours despite the lower official transfer time of 60mins.
As for the OP it is well debated in this forum on the benefits vs nonsense value of the T-35conformance check. It doesn't help you but I am not surprised to hear of it.

angatol

.....

UKTraveller4Fun

While I do have some sympathy with the op as missing a flight is never good when it is not your fault, but I can understand BA wanting to get the other flights away on time and T5 and the rules have meant a huge improvement in ontime departures compared to the old days.

While I have not been flying for 25 years, maybe 10 or so I have learnt never book a tight connection if you have something important at the other end. A 20-40 minute delay can happen so easily, if your on a connection under 2 hours I think you are risking it despite what BA and many other airlines publish as minimums. If you can afford to be bumped to the next flight then why not risk it, but if you have important meetings or a further connection to make it is simply not worth the risk and I am suprised someone of the ops flying experience did not know this and to be fair many other airlines would do the same thing so I think it is a little harsh on BA to say never fly again as many carriers are the same!

BA.MF.CSM

I empathise with the poster and am sorry they feel so disenchanted with BA, but I see this every day, people booking tight connections and then being surprised when their flight into or out of the world's busiest international airport is delayed.

With a route such as CDG of FRA, there are multiple daily departures with minimal intervals between flights, would it not be a bit wiser to give oneself a 'buffer' when booking connecting flights?

Kind regards

BA.MF.CSM

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to FlyerTalk stranded33, and I'm sorry to hear of the circumstances that brought you here. Since you are a frequent traveller, it would be good if you stayed around here and gave us further insights on your future travels. I must admit I am jealous if this really is the first significant irrop you have ever had. I doubt it makes you feel better, but other airlines do this too (including Lufthansa, KLM and AA in my personal experience).

You were unlucky in one big way, if you had a few more minutes you would have had fewer problems, but in reality by the time you factor in the security search upstairs, plus the fact that boarding is supposed to be completed well before take off time, plus the transit to B terminal, I actually doubt you would have made it. It is not just a case of walking to the gate.

Again I can sympathise with why you say this, but I have to say that Frankfurt is definitely not my idea of an easy transit airport. I doubt you would get through that in 35 minutes.

KenJohn

Appreciate the Op is finding an outlet to vent but it doesnt achieve much.

lancefan

Totally agree with that. Now this may sound harsh but I think the OP may have been a little foolish in booking such a tight connection even if it was a legal T5-T5 connection, when it sounds like they had to be on the Cape Town flight due to commitments in Cape Town.

I'll admit I've booked the odd tight connection but only when I know that if I happen to miss the connection it will have little effect on my plans for that day.

So where's the OP going to fly from when they come on and rant that they will never fly LH again when their Lufthansa flight is delayed because delayed flights are not exclusive to BA and they miss a very tight connection in Frankfurt. But then again I do have a spooky Friday the 13th feeling the OP will be a 1 hit wonder.

badoc

Oh, I don't know - it's an advertisement to flyers who need to be in certain places at certain times

JFK etc. yes - multiple daily flights. CPT no - one a day (mostly).

Why couldn't BA get them on the VS flight though? Leaves at 9pm ish doesn't it?

Hoch

I always thought that the minimal connecting time was 90 minutes (on the same ticket)? In any event, such a short time is both silly and daft That written, if I was told that I will be on my connecting flight and was not, I would be a bit miffed.

H

lancefan

The MCT doing a T5 to T5 connection is 60 minutes.