LTN Phobia

Your disruption-prone moderator has done it again - yes got disrupted!

Some of the readers who are rather familiar with my many tales of disruption must be thinking "ha, not again. I'm never flying on the same flight with that horrible mod anyway, but it reinforces that view - I don't want to get disrupted!"

Anyway, yes, I was rather disrupted. This time, the location was IST.

Here is a report on how the disruption was handled. A word of warning. It's going to be a long one. I'd like to tell you how things happened. Partially so that you might get some idea on how things *might* go if you get disrupted, especially at an outstation. Now, it's not to give you an idea of how things would go during the next Snowmaggedon. That may well be quite different. But at least it may prepare you for a bit of a winter disruption.

I have to say I have no real complaint - only praises for BA, although I think IST needs more deicing equipment. It seems to snow often enough to have one or two more deicing equipment there. I had a bad feeling when I saw the snow. I read about IST and snow not mixing so well. Problems with deicing or something similar, I vaguely recall hearing. But I thought what I would get would be a couple of hours' delay. Not 22 hours.

So, the story goes...

I was hanging around the BA lounge and noticed the cabin crew walk into the lounge. I went "u oh... here's trouble". That's not because I don't like seeing them in the lounge! It's because they only come to the lounge if there is a big delay.

As it turns out, the inbound flight to IST diverted to ADB (that's Izmir in Turkey, for those who are not familiar with predominantly charter destinations as far as ex-UK flights are concerned) because IST traffic flow was reduced. "Can't be helped... well whatever happens, happens" was about my thought. In fact it had been about 2.5 weeks since my last disruption so I was starting to feel tetchy anyway. I had the distinct feeling that it was about time I would get another one. And I did.

The lounge guardian made a PA informing passengers of the delay, and the CSD who was in the lounge, bless her, went around the lounge talking to passengers. Excellent customer services from the lovely lady, I thought. She could have just sat in the corner and hide if she wanted to, but no, she went around the lounge talking to passengers.

Time ticked by a bit, with some updates from the lounge agent. Frequent enough but not to the extent of breaking the relatively calm (well not really... there were some noisy children) lounge environment.

Eventually a PA was made to go and have a dinner in the "restaurant" (more like a canteen though) upstairs. I can't remember the exact time, but I vaguely recall it was about 1.5 hours after the scheduled departure time, and that there was to be a further announcement at 7pm if I recall. The aircraft had to come to IST from ADB to where it had diverted.

I left it a bit late going to this canteen thing, and the place was chock-a-block with BA passengers, including those who had been waiting at the gate. I was happy to see that everyone was getting fed (i.e. BA was very much fulfilling their EU "care" obligations) and watered. It appears that every one of the disrupted BA passenger could get whatever they wished to have from this canteen as all we had to do was to show our boarding pass instead of paying cash. I saw some who completely piled their tray sky high with food and that made me laugh. Seriously, just because the food is free, it doesn't mean one should get uncomfortably full!

I finished my meal (it was OK, not stunning, but I don't expect that airport food hall would be that good anyway), and went back to the lounge for updates. I left the lounge shortly afterwards to board the flight. I wasn't sure at that point if I was flying that night, because we now had the departure delay at IST and crew hours limit to worry about. Thankfully I did not have a connecting flight so I was pretty relaxed. My main concerns were for the cabin crew to whom some stressed out passengers may be a bit horrible to.

Once on board, the captain kept the passengers very well-informed. There was to be a 2-hour wait for deicing, and if we had to wait 2 hours, the crew would be out of hours even after the captain's discretionary extension of duty hours (it's set in law and you can't just go "heeey we'll work 20 hours!" etc). The captain specifically stated the time by which time we had to start moving, and that they were trying to negotiate an earlier departure so that we could start moving by then.

Cabin crew did drinks services in the meantime. It was good. I really liked the cheerfulness of the cabin crew. Big credit to the lovely CSD too, who kept the great sense of humour while managing all the cabin stuff. The cabin stuff... a bit messy, as in passengers standing everywhere, some grumpy ones, noisy ones etc etc.

Unfortunately that time limit came and went. Shortly afterwards the captain told us that we were unfortunately not going to get to LHR that night. I wasn't surprised to be honest. (to be continued)

LTN Phobia

(Continued)

We were told on the PA that we would be given accommodation for the night if required, and that we were given a rough departure time the next day.

There was a bit of what seemed like a bit of confusion as to what was happening for a while as we waited on board. There were some PAs made in Turkish by the handling agent that seemed different from those in English and I was trying to guess what was being said with my non-existent Turkish. That, not surprisingly, didn't work

Passengers were handed yellow-edged blank boarding cards, presumably to identify us in some ways although it remains a mystery to me what real purpose it served that the boarding pass could not serve. There were some delays in getting off the aeroplane but not excessively long, given the unexpected nature of our disembarkation.

The passengers were taken by bus back to the terminal, and seemingly let loose, until I noticed that there was a lady leading the pack waving a white piece of paper and shouting (not very loudly) "British Airways passengers please come this way". I don't know if everyone managed to follow the pack, but I was near the head of this pack so I did manage to follow.

Now it was time to go through immigration. We were led to a quiet immigration desk with only one or two guys working. I don't know what will have happened to some passengers (i.e. those doing an airside "transit" at IST) with no Turkish visa as the visa selling counters weren't nearby. I wonder if they had to leave to get a visa and join the back of the long queue of BA passengers.

Ground agents were processing people's hotel arrangements. The worst aspect of this was queue jumping by people. A lot of queue jumping. I was one of the passengers near the head of the queue but somehow ended up being pushed in by a lot of people. I must become more assertive to it!

Then who I think is a BA station manager or a duty station manager turned up (she had a silver scarf with BA uniforms). It appeared that it was resolved by her taking the decision to move people forward into the area with the tensa barriers. Tensa barriers have their excellent use, obviously, because queue jumping suddenly became much harder. Thank goodness. I find it very hard to handle queue jumping.

I still did manage to get processed as one of the first 50 at worst. Admittedly the processing was quite slow as they were telling each passenger where to wait for the bag, etc etc. They could have just shouted the instruction to a big group at the time but never mind. It wasn't so bad.

It appeared that all CE passengers were put up in Polat Renaisssance, with also some in ET being sent there, although I am not sure. I was told that the pick-up time was 9am from the hotel. I thought this was quite reasonable given the estimated departure time of noon.

I was thankfully travelling hand luggage only, so I did not need to wait for the bags. Therefore I chose to take a taxi instead of waiting for the transport that had been laid on by BA. I wanted to beat the check-in queue at the hotel, of course.

The hotel was close by, so I was settled into the room fairly quickly. On check-in, the hotel told me that the pick-up would be at 9am and that breakfast was provided. I was glad that the hotel room was properly booked and they were waiting for me. I was semi-expecting that there may be some chaos there, but no, it seemed all good. The hotel was pretty nice, especially for basically what was an "airport hotel". There was an indoor pool and the outdoor pool. Not that I felt tempted to jump into the pool, indoor or outdoor. I only want my hair wet in the shower, nowhere else. Outside looked quite cold, with snow continuing to fall.

I noticed some fellow passengers arriving about an hour later with suitcases, so it must have taken a while for them to retrieve the baggage and get on the bus. Not surprising again given an unexpected nature of the occurrence and the number of passengers involved (it was a busy-ish 767 flight).

The next morning I had a leisurely breakfast and decided that I would not take the bus to the airport. There is no point in arriving at the airport with a lot of people and end up in a queue. I left about 30 min behind the big group and arrived at the CE check-in queue that was relatively quiet.

It appeared that there were extra processing time required to check in because of the disruption. It looked like they did not carry over the seat assignment from the original flight and perhaps that was the reason why it took longer to process because they had to assign seats. Anyway, it was not excessively time-consuming.

(to be continued)

LTN Phobia

(Continued)

Snow kept falling and falling. Quite a lot of it.

At IST check-in, if you are travelling CE they give you a Fast Track Immigration pass, which also leads you to a somewhat quicker security lane. I don't think you get it as a GCH, SCH etc, if you are wondering about it - you definitely don't get one as a GCH/SCH if you are arriving at IST unless you are in CE.

I got one of those passes and walked to the immigration area further away from the BA check in. The pass is not valid at the nearest immigration area, by the way, and since it does save time in the queue, it's usually worth the extra walk.

Arriving at the lounge I noticed that it was pretty noisy. I think there were lots of bored children. I sort of sympathise. It wasn't so good that parents seemed to not do much to keep them quiet, but it's one of those things. Perils of travelling.

The lounge agent distributed BA-headed letters to people in case they need it for insurance, work, school etc. This was a very good move - it saves people having to ask the BA Customer Services for one. It helps both BA CS and passengers.

I saw the previous day on BA.com that the delayed flight (renamed BA677A) was leaving at 12:40. No problem with that at all... not for me anyway. Thankfully I had a day when I did not have to be anywhere in particular. I am sure it would have been inconvenient for some people, especially those with connecting flights, but such is the hazard of travelling, especially winter. If anything, I'd be annoyed with IST airport. Snow there is not exactly a freak weather.

We boarded a little later than scheduled, from memory. Then we were informed by the captain that some of the cabin crew who were needed to operate the flight were inbound on a BA flight and were trying to get over to our aircraft but having some kind of difficulties. However, as we were already in the approx 2-hour queue for deicing, it doesn't affect our departure time. I thought this was a rather good move.

The excellent CSD was ever present and staying rather cheerful in all of this, despite some passengers being rather grumpy. She always smiled. Quite an achievement actually, given the amount of time she spent the day before and that day interacting with passengers. Very caring and attentive too. Well done, lady!

My memory goes a bit vague here because I was sleeping on and off for all of the waiting time (sleeping is by far my favourite pastime on the flight) but they did the drink services. I think they may have run out of BA nuts though - not surprising. I think they are brought from LHR and they were used up the previous day while we were sitting on the ground. I was only sleeping on and off because the aircraft was quite noisy and the brats behind me kept using my seat back as a leverage and also kept kicking it. They were also noisy. Nice... I eventually asked them to leave my seat back alone. They weren't toddlers so they should know better. It didn't improve though and the pattern continued throughout the flight. Of course that's not BA's fault.

We eventually took off around 2 hours later than the 'new' scheduled departure time, due to deicing queues.

The flight was unpleasant despite the very pleasant crew members, thanks to those brats, but what can I do!

The flight arrived at LHR, around 22 hours behind the original schedule, but safe and sound.

Somewhat irrelevant snippets below:

Anna Karenina was on the main screen IFE.

Some lucky passengers flying LHR-IST or IST-LHR that day scored a 777 because of this 767 flight being stuck.

BA did well:
- Handled the disruption pretty smoothly - no major hiccups at all.
- Kept the passengers well informed. Captain, lounge guardian, cabin crew etc - all very well done.
- Made sure that passengers were looked after properly
- Crew were prepared to go the maximum hours (I know they are likely to have wanted to get home themselves but the max hours is a very, very long day)
- Cabin crew kept smiling through all of this and kept a good sense of humour (and so did the captain with whom I spoke a couple of times). Special thanks to the wonderful CSD!


The only disappointment, which I should add just because this is FT, is that despite having boarded the flight with the intention of taking off, followed by actually flying on its 'replacement', I only got the Avios for one! (I am joking. I only expect Avios for one flight, of course!)

DWFI

That sounds like a great handling of the disruption by BA!

However, I will not be traveling with you in the near future.

T8191

Oh, LTN - poor LTN. Have a cyber-hug.

What did you do in your earlier life to deserve this sort of thing happening to you so often? Or are you just statistically over-exposed to risk by flying too often?

However, I agree that BA seems to have made a very good recovery, all things considered.

LTN Phobia

Thank you, I had to laugh out loud at that comment! I sometimes do wonder. But I think it's just the statistical over-exposure and the run of bad luck. I'm expecting some more of those 'disruptions' next week, with some snow on the forecast (nice, not).

Maybe a bit more than statistical though. Since 1 December I have taken 26 flights. 7 flights were 'properly' disrupted (that is my own personal criteria of a delay of 30 minutes or more or cancellation), of which 4 were cancelled or delayed more than 2.5 hours. So that's probably more than what's statically likely, but I think it's just one of those things.

They did, and I have just sent a well done on BA.com to a few people involved.

I was certainly kept happy, and the hotel BA put me in was not bad at all, and the breakfast was pretty decent too. I really cannot complain.

Stez

Have you considered getting a second income by demanding compensation under the EU regulations?

If you don't want the money, put it into a pot to compensate for any of us FTers who may have the misfortune to have you on the same flight in the future?

LTN Phobia

Ha ha, but this was a genuinely exceptional circumstance which BA really could not have foreseen.

I think the insurers may have an additional criteria in the future - "If you have plans to be on the same flight as LTN Phobia, you must declare it".

(In reality though, it's unusual for me to be delayed more than 12 hours, which is usually the insurance lower limit for disruption payment.)

thegreatmrsj

Good to read how well your disruption was handled
I do hope your TPs and Avios come with you

My return flight to EDI was cancelled last Friday, they consolidated to the next flight but unfortunately the points have not followed on.
Tried the missing points link but all it does is tells me I have had the points for the down journey (I know that!!!) oh dear another sort out to add to the to do list

HIDDY

Can't complain about any of that....seems to have been handled really well. The CSD sounds like a real good one.

Really smart move by you taking a taxi to/from the hotel instead of waiting for the laid on bus. ^
AF put us up in a hotel after we missed our connection at CDG. We were told to wait outside and a crew bus would take us to the hotel . After nearly an hours waiting the bus still hadn't turned up so around 1am we had to take a taxi instead. The wife still reminds me we could have been in bed an hour earlier that night had I not been so stingy in the first place.

Lioneye

An excellent non-hysterical account of what happened and glad to see BA made the best in what must have been annoying circumstances.

T8191

I doubt LTN does hysterical at any time, but I suggest being very afraid when she's cross

BA235

Ah yes, the lure of the taxi after irregular operations.

After two missed approaches due to fog, Ryanair diverted us to an alternative airport some two hours drive away. The airport informed us that buses would (eventually) be sent to collect us. Rather than bugger about spending two hours waiting for the charabancs to appear and then another two to get to the original airfield, itself an hour away from where I wanted to be, I got a cab and gave vague directions in my inadequate French ("Le direction La Rochelle ...") and watched with alarm as the metre steadily creep up until my 150 euros had been exhausted. Thankfully, my "arret" coincided with the precise point at which we reached the outskirts of my father's town. Phew!

LTN Phobia

Oh dear, that's rather unfortunate! But I'm surprised that Ryanair went as far as to arrange for a bus rather than "make your own way". I know EK did that to passengers after diverting to Paris (they were supposed to go to London) at least once.

I was much more lucky. I was vaguely aware that the hotel was not very far from the airport. The fares turned out to be about �6 each way. �6 well spent.

Flyersj18

Sitting on board BA368 at the moment, should be heading to MRS but MRS is closed due to high winds and we are now heading to NCE.

So far things have been handled well, plenty of info given face to face by the Captain and assurances given that buses will be waiting in NCE to transport passengers on to MRS.

Whilst I will probably just head straight to Toulon by train instead it is good to see some pro-active service and thinking.

This is my first Irrop in quite a while so touch wood I am not joining the travel disruption magnet club...