matthandy

Nope. My company pays for my work flights. If it was me paying then I'd go with BA unless the price difference was crazy.

NeverFirst

I just looked up some numbers. MUC T2 is actually running about 10% over design capacity.

Doesn't feel like it

shorthauldad

Wise travellers use BA for LHR-MUC but LH for MUC-LHR, that way you get a nice departure terminal on both sectors ^

Having said that, I was in the LH J lounge in LHR T2 last week and it's perfectly good enough (although it feels like a clone of the lounges in FRA). Not crowded, and the chicken curry was excellent, as were the puddings. No, there wasn't any Champagne, and no, I don't care!

For those opting to fly *A out of LHR, T1 was always the ugly sister compared to T5, but T2 changes that.

shorthauldad

Quite. They're working hard on that satellite though!

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12B411 Safari/600.1.4)

T5 is running at 30m actual (2013) v 35m design?

Hoch

I cannot disagree with you on the monopoly part. Unless BA see a drop in passengers numbers from T5 and are able to attribute it to the 'passenger experience', then there's probably only so much push back that BA will undertake against HAL. Still, BA seems to improved operations out of LGW over the last couple of years.

I'm sure over the years we have all heard disgruntled passengers at T5 blame BA for the problems when in fact they are HAL's, or as I used to say, "Not BA but add another 'A' (when it was BAA)." Surely this sort of thing is bad for the brand.

H

MNManInKen

I went through South "fast" track on Sun morning at about 8am prior to my flight to HND and it was quite bad then too.

T5 security is just not good enough and frankly it means whoever has management responsibility over it should get the sack, with the successor being told quite clearly they'll be out promptly too unless they get their act together.

Not being able to get the staff? Don't make me laugh - in a city the size of London? It is perfectly possible to get decent and motivate people and replace those not doing the job properly with someone who will.

Yes, it was like this too on Sun, and not the first time either. If the graphic is going to be plainly wrong, better not to have it at all IMO.

Well, I would hope some of the expensive lawyers BA has would make sure there are contract provisions to claw back money from HAL over bad performance, sue them or undertake whatever other form of harassing HAL to keep the pressure on. I suspect it's in the short term easier to be meek about it instead which is why HAL gets away with it.

BA could make more hay of using PR outreach to lay the blame where it belongs if they are not responsible.

I agree with you on both of those points, but this is no reason to throw in the towel IMHO.

I like MAD T4 very much in most respects and fast track there works generally really well, but their baggage handling has been invariably dreadful, painfully slow. I'm actively avoiding MAD as much as I can over this, they've lost out on my custom several times for no other reason than the painfully slow baggage arrival.

T8191

And who is going to commute out of The Big City to LHR to do the job for a low wage? The problem, having lived near LHR for far too many years, is that the local demographic is [a] limited, in term of job-seekers, [b] ethically diverse, and [c] generally CBA.

Sorry if that's seen as playing hardball, but the realistic recruitment pool is Slough, Uxbridge, West Drayton, Hayes etc.

NickB

However much you pay your lawyers, they still cannot fundamentally change your basic bargaining power anymore than, however much you pay your meteorologists, they cannot alter the weather. The problem for an airline like BA negotiating with HAL is that BA cannot realistically threaten to leave LHR if the terms that HAL are offering do not suit them. Now, there surely is room for negotiations on a lot of things and you can up to a point create incentive structures into contracts based on performance but the notion that BA, just because it is HAL's largest customer, can more or less impose its will on HAL and dictate whatever terms it wants with respect to performance standards strikes me as rather unrealistic.

T8191

In which case, agreeing with you completely, the only credible leverage is through the bloody Media ... who will tell HAL they run possibly the worst major airport in Europe. Whether they care, when the Shopping Mall generates money, is a different question, but they should be shamed in public for running [or not] a shambles of the UK's flagship airport.
Am I wrong?
Do they have shareholders too?

HIDDY

I believe the owners are fined if they fail to meet certain targets regarding wait times at security.

layz

There's a decent choice of lounges that a *G can use in T2, and unlike T5 there's a couple of decent Priority Pass options too.

So I'd say the advantage on the airport side of things no longer goes to BA at LHR (T2 is also closer to Central London). I'd still say that on-board I'd prefer BA.

shorthauldad

How's that going?

paulwuk

The invisible hand fixes all.

Land-of-Miles

I haven't looked at *A fir a few years since LH made life very difficult to accrue SEN on normal travel patterns.

However for shorthaul I am now actively considering a *G status match to avoid new BA shorthaul and benefit from direct flights from MAN.