HarryHolden68

Why oh why?

I used to think I was unlucky. Disrupted travel plans on a more regular basis. More and more, it is becoming apparent that BA are seemingly free-falling into mediocrity. Why would they want a third runway when they cannot handle the traffic generated by two?

In the last 72 hours I have seen:

A colleague with a disabled daughter denied boarding due to overbooking. Fair enough, it happens. However, she was re-routed on Croatian, through CDG, with a 70 minute connection, no boarding pass issued and a terminal transfer in Paris. Needless to say, she missed the connection. Finding no help from the French as she was on a BA ticket, I ended up having to sort her a hotel and ticket the next day. Dreadful disowning from BA. To make a good story better, her luggage had been sent to ZAG on her original flight. It goes without saying that it could not be located when she finally arrived the next day. So much for me telling her how good BA are.

Today's (Monday) morning 112 arrival from JFK. Landed on time so should not be a surprise to anyone. For 25 minutes we sat on the taxiway waiting for a tug to move a previous flight from our gate. Eventually, we just found another gate.

Fast forward to my flight to Milan 2 hours later, and despite the weather (lightening and heavy rain) the doors were closed about 10 minutes late. However, once again, no tugs. 20 minutes later a tug arrives but then we are held at the stand due to routes south having weather closures. 45 minutes after boarding, we are now told clearance will not be for another hour so departure over 2 hours late.

After all the "no-one to turn on the stand guidance", "luggage delivery", "cancellations through a lack if pilots", is it me, or are BA operations having a meltdown that is getting worse as the year progresses?

I know Heathrow operates at capacity and that a drop of rain can cause chaos. But knowing that this is their Achilles heel, BA should do everything in their power to make sure that they can operate as efficiently as possible when it does rain. Instead, BA have no coping mechanism to expedite things and doing what they can to minimise any disruption. Why not have more gate teams, baggage handlers and buy some more tugs. Had a tug been available this morning when we were ready to go, we would have got out before the weather came in. They have cabin crew on stand by at the airport so why not ground staff? Apart from cost saving. One day I will save them a lot of cost by not troubling them with my newly earned (this morning) loyalty card.

Instead, poor captain tells us it's just another one of those things. Those things that are happening more and more frequently when flying with BA from Heathrow.

ACARS

Thats the cost of generating a profit in the airlines these days.

crazy8534

Sounds like a nasty set of occurrences but I am not sure how much control BA have over these issues, aren't they mostly staff of Heathrow airport?

Mattyb44

Some of those issues mentioned would be down to Swissport, which are common, and the weather, which is unpredictable. Not acceptable, but both not directly within BAs control.

ACARS

For BA at LHR the entire ground staffing in BA uniform is BA owned and operated. It is entirely in BA's control to purchase tugs and have staff to operate them and stand jetties etc.

At LGW it is a different kettle of fish. I have no doubt BA are content, they cut costs and generated a profit, the rest is just smoke and mirrors these days from those high up.

As for the weather, well as the saying goes "s@@7 happens ".

stifle

Agreed. A series of unfortunate events, no more.

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_1_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11D257 Safari/9537.53)

Time for Govt to unilaterally impose a 10% slot reduction on BA.

That should help focus their minds on business continuity and recovery.

As for it being a "series of unfortunate events", how long does that series have to be before it's more than coincidence?

jkw76

I think BA have some control, just spent 1h30 waiting for a domestic gate upon arrival from LBA. No BA tugs to move the departing planes, then no busses with drivers to deal with the remote stand we were given.

Fortunately the knock on effect means I can order instant self compensation in the CCR.

KARFA

That's not good to hear. I had a problem on Friday on LBA-LHR, lack of TRMs meant although we we on stand by 2300 (weather delay) the airbridge wasn't connected until 2355. The number of TRMs and cover late in the evening when you know there will be delays due to weather earlier in the day is well within BA's control.

I agree with ACARS, Kgmm77, and HarryHolden68. These issues at LHR are all within BA's control and there are too many regularly happening to be simply excused as unfortunate coincidences.

adrianjc32

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KARFA

I don't want to think I am having a go at you, and I agree with what you say adrianjc32 that sometimes stuff happens and you can't plan for all eventualities. However, it would appear from at least my own experience and those of others who post that BA's ground operations at T5 have absolutely no slack whatsoever, so at the smallest of disruption it all goes wrong you wait ages for a stand, and a tug, and a TRM to do the airbridge etc., and the whole situation is really worse than it needs to be. There also seems to be no ability to call in resources at short (i.e. less than 24 hrs) notice so they can have extra staff when very bad weather is forecast.

paulwuk

Having a bus + driver available to deplane a flight from a remote stand is something that is easily overcome. The EU compensation given out people on just one delayed flight per month would easily cover the cost of an extra bus and a few days overtime.

EU compensation should be automatic and mandatory in cases when there are delays between wheels down and departing the plane. It should also be extended to include baggage, as it stands of the 50 people that were due compensation from jkw76s flight due to missed connections, I doubt more than 5 actually know they can claim it.

adrianjc32

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jcm9000

It has been quite the day here at LHR. All good on arrival from YYZ this morning, even immigration and security were ok for once, and an early arrival. Flight to BRU was delayed as they had to unplug the plane (generator at the back of the plane was knackered), and the weather was delaying departures. Get to BRU about 1.5 hours late I think, I zipped through connections and talked the lady into putting me back on the same plane. Busy flight, lots of international connections, landed, changed stand, and had to wait for the plane to be plugged back in . Gate change meant no generator on the airbridge (supposedly some have some have not), so waited a while for the genny truck before the captain could shut off the engines. Another 10 mins or so and we all got off to the usual Zoo that is immigration. People everywhere, no order, people shoving and skipping lines, as usual UK connections was the only quiet bit (and the e-gates for leaving LHR were totally empty) but you had to fight to get there. No fast track of course, lots of delayed queue jumpers with short connections, and when finally up to security it is just painful to watch the staff doddering around. Get through that, handle on case breaks (can't get it down), and all flights to glasgow are delayed with a few Euro cancellations.

Meh, these things happen, but it just reinforces how much i hate coming through here (except for the GF which I of course like). I would rather transit Miami quite frankly, they know how to fast track security by barking at everyone!

I also feel sorry for most of the staff, especially at immigration. They were all very polite, but some were dealing with walls of people trying to barrel them over. I don't know how they put up with it. Oh and I would add every single BA employee I have ever dealt with at T5 always seems to be keen to help.

paulwuk

You hate going through it but you're willing to do it twice on the same day.