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Old Mar 22, 2018, 2:46 am
  #2986  
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Originally Posted by Snafu_again
With all of that, it's not possible to reach somewhere in Europe and a tech stop in Lagos has previously been the chosen option.
Departing LOS after a tech stop on a 3-engine ferry must add some piquancy to the bliss of reaching V1 there.
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Old Mar 24, 2018, 2:08 pm
  #2987  
 
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Originally Posted by corporate-wage-slave
I'm not staff. The one thing I can contribute is that Manage My Booking is actually correctly auto-adjusted when there is an infant in the booking, so that on some aircraft you may see a set of alternating row blocks of available seats, assuming no other passengers have taken them, representing the extra mask seating areas.
Thanks for the input CWS but I'm not sure that is correct, unless I have misunderstood your point.

I have now booked four flights, all on A320 family aircraft, since my last post. On each occasion, despite there being an infant in the booking, the seat map shows pretty much open availability (like there are only 9 blocked seats on a 320). The seat map doesn't, however, block seats where there isn't an additional oxygen mask above. Rather frustratingly it shows all seats as open but when you click to select a seat (which doesn't have the additional oxygen mask above) you are presented with an error message and told to call BA. I am surprised that FLY (if this is operated by FLY) can't auto block seats where there is no oxygen mask above. Of course, I am presuming that there is commonality as to where the additional oxygen mask appears.
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Old Apr 5, 2018, 7:37 am
  #2988  
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When I was updating the 744 tracker post earlier, I noticed that each aircraft that had a new reported total hours figure seemed to have done very close to 4,000 hours in the most recent year - often to within a couple of hundred hours of 4,000.

It made me wonder whether 4,000 hours a year is an actual target that the fleet is operated to? Or is that just the way it happens to pan out, given the way that the fleet is used?
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Old Apr 8, 2018, 7:02 am
  #2989  
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
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Did the A320 pilots have to receive any new training/courses for the A320neo? I remember watching a interview with the flight test crew who said "it flies just like any other A320" but I guess that doesn't mean the same licence covers it.
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Old Apr 8, 2018, 7:10 am
  #2990  
 
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Originally Posted by Calum
Did the A320 pilots have to receive any new training/courses for the A320neo? I remember watching a interview with the flight test crew who said "it flies just like any other A320" but I guess that doesn't mean the same licence covers it.
There are some additional training packages to work through, notably an extremely tedious video on the new radar. There are a few additional systems and different engines but the differences are minor. The main difference In handling is a changed rotation law, which has led to a few saw tooth rotations in other operators. Other features are minor presentational changes, the go around alt presentation will now be white until armed by the application of TOGA when it turns armed blue. Also there is a soft Go-Aroound function and Auto TCAS. Other stuff is minor and trivial.


It may may surprise you all to know that the equipment fit state of the early A319s differs greatly from the latest sharkletted machines and part of the essential pre flight brief is to ensure the mod state of the aircraft. This will be the same for the NEO.
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Old Apr 9, 2018, 5:15 am
  #2991  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
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I'm off to Columbo via Chennai in a couple of weeks' time. BA to Chennai, Sri Lankan to Columbo with the same carriers on the way back.

The wife and I are on the same BA booking ref for all flights and my questions are:

1) Will our baggage be checked through by default? (Would rather it is!)
2) Despite our long connection at Chennai on the way out, we will probably stay in the airport (!), so I presume visas will not be required?

The reason for my second question is that we've had conflicting info from the travel agent on the subject:- what he's heard from other clients vs. what he knows. My answer has been "no".

Thanks!
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Old Apr 9, 2018, 5:32 pm
  #2992  
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Originally Posted by BAW2
I'm off to Columbo via Chennai in a couple of weeks' time. BA to Chennai, Sri Lankan to Columbo with the same carriers on the way back.

The wife and I are on the same BA booking ref for all flights and my questions are:

1) Will our baggage be checked through by default? (Would rather it is!)
2) Despite our long connection at Chennai on the way out, we will probably stay in the airport (!), so I presume visas will not be required?

The reason for my second question is that we've had conflicting info from the travel agent on the subject:- what he's heard from other clients vs. what he knows. My answer has been "no".

Thanks!
Not a staffer but:

If the flights are on one reservation, your bags will be checked through.

Holders of most passports will require a visa or e-visa to enter India. We would need to know the issuing country and type of passport you travel on to comment. Also, persons with connections to Pakistan may face additional bureaucracy.
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 1:16 am
  #2993  
 
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Q1: Based on the last few days flight history, there's a moderate risk that I'll miss my connection to SFO tomorrow afternoon. Am I automatically rebooked and if so, can I request a new "manual" rerouting by a lounge agent if I find a more convenient connection?

Q2: I should be travelling WT+ all the way to SFO but in case of rerouting I might well find me connecting for example at JFK and as there's no WT+ service from JFK to SFO I believe I would be downgraded to AA Economy. In that case, am I entitled to any refund?
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 1:46 am
  #2994  
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Originally Posted by timma1971
Q1: Based on the last few days flight history, there's a moderate risk that I'll miss my connection to SFO tomorrow afternoon. Am I automatically rebooked and if so, can I request a new "manual" rerouting by a lounge agent if I find a more convenient connection?

Q2: I should be travelling WT+ all the way to SFO but in case of rerouting I might well find me connecting for example at JFK and as there's no WT+ service from JFK to SFO I believe I would be downgraded to AA Economy. In that case, am I entitled to any refund?
I'm not staff, just a customer, but I know the answer to these questions.

If you miss the connection, typically if the connection time falls well below an hour, then the system will generally rebook you, and if you keep refreshing the App you can see what they are coming up with. Now this is supposed to lead to a refreshed boarding pass on the App but I've never got that to work cleanly. So when you turn up at Flight Connections (or Check-in if you are an EEA or Swiss citizen) then you can at that point persuade the agent to look at other options and indeed make suggestions. Now you could have another go in the lounge but in theory you only get one involuntary rebooking, a rule which isn't entirely rigid it has to be said. If your booking involves anything that needs re-ticketing (e.g. the downgrade to economy) then you will probably need a specialist ticket agent to help, and there is always one of them in Galleries Club South Customer Services desk on the southern side of the lounge. If it's a simple rebook on the same route to a later service it won't need the intervention of a ticket agent.

For the downgrade you would be refunded by one of two formulas. The statutory formula follows EC261 which is first to pro-rata your fare by the mileage affected and then you get 75% (in this case) of the fare for the downgrade. However since they are able to charge necessary government taxes and airport charges, on WTP to WT this could be quite a modest sum, More details in the main EC261 thread in the forum's Dashboard. This goes to the customer, at least in terms of the Regulation. The second formula is often more generous: this uses BA's internal involuntary refund calculation and looks just at fare differences, and this is the sort of case where it may be slightly more generous. This is refunded to the payment mechanism used. It's one or the other, you don't get both.
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 4:04 am
  #2995  
 
Join Date: Aug 2012
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We are a family group travelling to the US on the same flight but in different classes and on different PNRs.
I have heard we can combine the bookings? How would one do that, and what are the advantages of doing so?
thanks for any advice
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 4:12 am
  #2996  
 
Join Date: Nov 2017
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Originally Posted by Dorsetboy
We are a family group travelling to the US on the same flight but in different classes and on different PNRs.
I have heard we can combine the bookings? How would one do that, and what are the advantages of doing so?
thanks for any advice
Gold members (only?) may phone up and request something called TCP - To Complete Party. That itself is just a manual link between the two bookings, effectively a text entry in the PNR to identify that you are travelling together. Benefits include being able to make a seat request for the other party, even if they don't have status but sadly this won't apply here - you have to be travelling in the same cabin. You can't make a seat request for another party in another class.

You should be able to get the group boarding of the highest status holder in the group (Silver?) so you can all board as Group 2 (unless your cabin class entitles you to higher) even on separate PNRs. As a courtesy, I've always checked with the gate agent, but never had an issue boarding together on separate PNRs.

There may be other benefits, which those more expert than I will no doubt explain shortly
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 5:17 am
  #2997  
 
Join Date: Apr 2017
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Originally Posted by Calchas
Not a staffer but:

If the flights are on one reservation, your bags will be checked through.

Holders of most passports will require a visa or e-visa to enter India. We would need to know the issuing country and type of passport you travel on to comment. Also, persons with connections to Pakistan may face additional bureaucracy.
Thanks for your response!
I'll telephone BA CS this arvo and confirm with them.
Confirm no connection with PK!
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 5:41 am
  #2998  
 
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One (ok, many!) for the pilots, inspired by a post by KeaneJohn in the NEO thread about rejected take off tests.

Presumably at their simplest these tests are what they sound like, namely can you safely halt the aircraft from some defined maximum speed (above which I guess you are taking off whether you want to or not....)

I would surmise that they need to do these tests with the aircraft at MTOW since that would affect braking distance? Do they just use ballast instead of pax and cargo? What do they do in respect of fuel load - on one hand, I can see that there could be benefit to running minimal fuel, as a risk mitigation strategy in case the test goes wrong. On the other hand, presumably a full fuel load more accurately represents the weight distribution and actual state of the aircraft in the event of a 'live' rejected TO?

From what I've read, such tests have to be conducted on the brakes alone, i.e. without assistance of any thrust reversers etc? I suspect passengers - including myself - probably overrate the importance of such additional deceleration, not least because it looks dramatic If it can be quantified, what proportion of total available deceleration is due to the brakes?

How fast can brakes alone decelerate an aircraft, and is there significant differences between say an A318 and an A380. Naively I would expect there to be so, but perhaps the big lad simply has much more braking power to counteract the weight? (but then would it run up against limits of tyre friction?)

Lastly, in the case of real rejected TO, where the pilot can make a subsequent attempt, how do they ensure that the systems are in a state where it is safe to do so? Are there sensors, or do they make visual inspections? (I'm thinking for example, where the case of the first rejected TO has "cooked" the brakes to the point where their performance is dramatically impacted, I presume you can't simply "have another go" since if another rejection was needed, the brakes would not be able to stop the aircraft).

Lot of questions, so thanks in advance for any insights.
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 6:21 am
  #2999  
 
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Can't speak with any authority on those points but if you haven't read it already Captain Dave's blog has an article on the A380 braking system, specifically the function of Brake to Vacate: https://captaindave.aero/2014/03/07/...rt-2-stopping/
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Old Apr 10, 2018, 7:06 am
  #3000  
 
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Originally Posted by BertieBadger
One (ok, many!) for the pilots, inspired by a post by KeaneJohn in the NEO thread about rejected take off tests.

Presumably at their simplest these tests are what they sound like, namely can you safely halt the aircraft from some defined maximum speed (above which I guess you are taking off whether you want to or not....)

I would surmise that they need to do these tests with the aircraft at MTOW since that would affect braking distance? Do they just use ballast instead of pax and cargo? What do they do in respect of fuel load - on one hand, I can see that there could be benefit to running minimal fuel, as a risk mitigation strategy in case the test goes wrong. On the other hand, presumably a full fuel load more accurately represents the weight distribution and actual state of the aircraft in the event of a 'live' rejected TO?

From what I've read, such tests have to be conducted on the brakes alone, i.e. without assistance of any thrust reversers etc? I suspect passengers - including myself - probably overrate the importance of such additional deceleration, not least because it looks dramatic If it can be quantified, what proportion of total available deceleration is due to the brakes?

How fast can brakes alone decelerate an aircraft, and is there significant differences between say an A318 and an A380. Naively I would expect there to be so, but perhaps the big lad simply has much more braking power to counteract the weight? (but then would it run up against limits of tyre friction?)

Lastly, in the case of real rejected TO, where the pilot can make a subsequent attempt, how do they ensure that the systems are in a state where it is safe to do so? Are there sensors, or do they make visual inspections? (I'm thinking for example, where the case of the first rejected TO has "cooked" the brakes to the point where their performance is dramatically impacted, I presume you can't simply "have another go" since if another rejection was needed, the brakes would not be able to stop the aircraft).

Lot of questions, so thanks in advance for any insights.
From my dim distant memory, RTO tests are done at Max Take Off Weight, so that would need full fuel tanks and ballast weight, think they use a mix of weight in the cargo compartment and ballast on board. Usually done on test aircraft in the early stages of the test flight routine, if not before initial flight, so there are no pax seats in the conventional sense.

The tests are done with fully worn brakes to est the worst case scenario and may or indeed often result in brakes fires. There are videos easily found on YouTube of this sort of thing.

In normal landings the use of reverse thrust is not terribly important as it only reduces the heat in the brakes. Indeed the 380 only has inboard reverse, the outers deleted in development as the aircraft was too heavy and would not meet its expected and promised performance. There are a few places where the use of reverse thrust is useful but it is not essential - some failure cases may be affected by taking account of reverse thrust but it is not normally important. The brakes are what stops the aircraf and the failure of the spoilers to deploy is more worrying than a reverser fail as it is the spoilers that ensure the weight of the aircraft is fully on the wheels allowing the brakes to operate most efficiently.

Before each landing we calculate the braking distance required and whether or not we need to use full reverse..This is belt and braces stuff as we take no account of them for the braking distance. Based on the calculation we make e will alter the required amount of braking - brake to vacate would do this automatically, the 320 still requires a bit of pilot skill in this area.

In in terms of having another go after an RTO, much would depend on why you stopped and what speed you stopped from. A high speed stop would only be done for a failure which means it is highly unlikely the aircraft would be able to fly again without engineering input. A low speed stop may allow another go provided the checks did not reveal any issues, the onboard systems would all have to indicate no fault and importantly brakes within a limited temperature range. Remember that brake energy increase as a square function of speed so relatively low speeds can produce high brake temps, also at takeoff weights you may be significantly above max landing weight so again brake energy would be higher than landing due to the additional mass of the aircraft.
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