andyinflitwick

Hi All,

Last night I had the misfortune of flying back to LGW from BCN on one of BA's beyond-end-of-life Boeing 737-436 planes. Headed to the gate from the lounge 30 mins before the flight to be told the flight had gone tech and that they would have more info in 40 mins. An hour later, still no info. Finally board 1hr 15 mins late to be told there is still a fault that the captain would explain shortly.

So it turns out the auto-navigation equipment had totally failed on the inbound flight. BA had negotiated with the various air traffic control organisations to be allowed to fly with no Nav but we were limited to 18,000 ft. Not good although better than the flight being cancelled I guess.

These planes should be retired. They are in an awful state and the only good thing is that the seat pitch hasn't been enhanced!

To top it off, two ladies had managed to board the LGW flight rather than the LHR flight. Much hilarity in ET (which was very full with a large school group) while the crew worked out what had happened. Took the crew 20 min to negotiate with the two women to stay on the flight as all other London flights had left for the day. BA refused any responsibility although they had let the ladies on the plane despite checks.

So Rather than getting home at 12am, I got home at 2:30am courtesy of an all-stations Thameslink train as i'd missed the last fast one. Thanks BA for yet another vile travelling experience.

Can I help you

You have your wish then, all B737s will be gone very soon.

SCSA

Letting people board the wrong flight is clearly the airline's responsibility

shorthauldad

Did they sneak on board the LGW service to get extra legroom?

msm2000uk

I presume the BA line will be:

We outsource our operations at BCN to 'xxxxxx'. While 'xxxxx' have a duty to meet BA standards, we ourselves are not directly responsible for their actions. It is most regrettable that 'xxxxxx' let down these 2 customers, but we are glad they were accomodated on another BA available service'.

FlyerTalker688786

lol...That is a good one!

SCSA

Regulated industries are responsible for outsourced core functions as if they were performing the functions themselves.

Checking boarding passes and ensuring the right pax are on the right plane is about as core as you can get. Not only is it for the benefit of the passengers in question, it's a massive safety issue.

Tafflyer

This is a huge lapse in security and there really should be some follow-up. I suppose these ladies' luggage was loaded on the LHR service and flew without them too. That also should have been picked up by the dispatchers of the LHR service. Outsourcing requires tough governance which is unfortunately lacking in so many industries, and if taken seriously would quest its viability in many cases.

sigma421

I believe xxxxxxx in this case would be Iberia ground services. Now, I wonder who owns them...

Calchas

I know it requires a lot more work and attention from the pilots, particularly in balancing the trim against changes in weight distribution as people move about the aircraft, but flying without autopilot at 30,000 feet is not really beyond the scope of a BA pilot's abilities, right?

http://www.airlinepilotchatter.com/2...1_archive.html

KARFA

It is not the autopilot that was faulty, rather it sounds like the GPS or INS had a problem. This is an incrediby simplistic analogy (and I am sure one of teh BA pilots who post will pick me up on it) but GPS/INS is your sat nav whilst autopilot is the cruise control. You can always set the autopilot to a specific altitude and heading, but it would be nice to know where you are as well. I think the backup would be to fly by radio beacons (VOR).

Calchas

Ah yes that makes more sense, especially at night.

gcuk

I like the 737s. Tech delays happen unfortunately. Pax on the recent overnight tech delay on a virtually new A380 will vouch for that.

KARFA

Oh and I don't think that you would need to do constant trim alterations anyway. You set the trim and that is what is maintained by the aircraft. If anything changes and the stabiliser requires adjusting the aircraft does it itself, but you can also alter the trim using the trim switch on the yoke usually when manually flying the plane. If you ever watch 737 cockpit videos especially during takeoff or landing the trim wheels are the large black discs with a white stripe eiether side of the throttle quadrant. They often spin round madly and are well placed to take out the pilots kneecap especially where the handle has been left out!

EDIT: just to add that the stabiliser trim is not part of the autopilot system

Connectionsperson

Just a little update. The two passengers were indeed booked on this flight and had boarding passes issued. Maybe they didn't realise that they were trav to LGW... But they did miss the LHR flight for some reason and were rebooked onto this service. So I do not believe they were boarded in error.