wolf72

Think there is sensible actions and practical actions on their part.

You expect them to transfer 30 pax and their luggage and then rush it to the aircraft with less than 1 hour to go from a different terminal?

Get real. Fly in 3-4 hours earlier next time and stop expecting miracles please.

Purim

I was not there so I don't know what happened, but I fly out of the LAX all the time on either the 283 or the 269. The BA ground staff at LAX know what they are doing and some have been around for a long time. No knock on other outstations, but BA are well equipped here in Los Angeles.

I think the BA folks did a good job here. Offloaded by AA systems, passengers turning up with boarding passes, boarding in process and seats available - they let folks on. Sounds like it took a supervisor - the right thing to do. Always a shame to hear passengers giving ground staff a hard time.

It strikes me as impossible to make the 269 in this situation by going landside and legging it the short distance from T4 to TBIT because there would have been no one at the BA check in desks to reissue BP's - so folks would never have gotten through security.

I wonder if in general AA other US based carriers are a little more trigger happy on offloading folks these carriers have less of an obligation to look after passengers on IRROPS.

All in all then, this story sounds like a FUBAR redeemed?

jamespvg

It's almost certainly not that simple in this case, given the Joint Business Agreement. They (purport to) operate as "one airline" across the Atlantic, and at least for revenue purposes, they do.

Global321

Why would any airline let another airline offload their passengers? I could be wrong, but I think this was BA's call. And from what others have said, sounds like this is common for BA.

As for giving ground staff a hard time, I don't think that is fair. You were not there. Neither was I. I can say, I have seen plenty of people argue with (unresponsive) gate agents to get on a flight... and "win" the argument to secure their rights. Is that giving ground staff a hard time or enforcing your rights?

Always a shame to hear ground staff abusing their position (too).

wolf72

I think you are being quite unreasonable.

But that's just me. I would love for my airline to hold the flight for me and to go out of their way to ensure I could get to the terminal, clear airport security on time and then get to the boarding gate in time for push back and departure but when a passenger leaves it as late as the OP did by selecting a flight that in all honesty, and you need to accept this, was very VERY tight to begin with taking into account he landed in a completely different terminal and then not taking into account possible delays...why blame BA and their staff?

Next time, fly in 3-4 hours or 6 hours earlier like most people do and just wait to catch the next flight well ahead of the departure time. That's what I do and most people I know as well..it sucks but you put yourself at risk by doing these last minute departures and then expecting ground staff to open heaven and earth to make things happen because you did not want to fly in a little bit earlier.

ski

Quoted "Think there is sensible actions and practical actions on their part.
You expect them to transfer 30 pax and their luggage and then rush it to the aircraft with less than 1 hour to go from a different terminal?
Get real. Fly in 3-4 hours earlier next time and stop expecting miracles please."


Yes, Most do expect the airlines to do this, as they do this everyday. Sometimes the luggage does not make it, but the pax should not be denied access to buses to the gate to see if they could make the plane. Not sure if this is the case with this flight, but in the other thread, first the pax was told by gate agent that corporate had taken them off the flight, then the pax received email saying it was the computer system. Pax run for flights everyday, but now the American computer system is predicting misconnects and pax are arriving at the gate within the accepted guidelines and finding they have no seats. If the itinerary is not acceptable for the airline, then they should not sell it.

Global321

I think you are misunderstanding my point. I agree with you about getting to your gate early. I always do.

I never assume an airline would hold the flight for me. I never expect the airline to escort me to the gate. THAT is unreasonable. It is my job to get there before boarding ends (or 10 minutes before departure or whatever the rule is for that airline).

My position is... if I have a tight connection AND if I got to the gate in the middle of boarding (before the cutoff), I have every right to my seat. Just because someone at the airline assumed I would not show up is no reason to take my seat. And I have every right to be upset that it was taken away. And I have every right to (respectfully) make my point.

And if you take me off the flight, I have every right to denied boarding compensation.

NonSmokingWindow

Airlines at a particular station tend to have a very good rapport, especially within an alliance.

AA was in the best position to know whether or not the passengers would make the connection. In their estimation, (and from what I read, had the passengers followed the proper route) the passengers would miss the BA flight. In the land of e-tickets, if a passenger is checked into a flight, (here, the BA flight) then they can't be rebooked onto another flight using the e-ticket. AA asked BA to offload the passengers so AA could rebook them onto another flight.

It was all under the hope of providing good customer service.

dylanks

The T5 Hilton does have the worst buffet for irrops passengers ever.

In the case of 10% of the passengers on a flight being slightly delayed, from another I would expect the airline to try everything to get them onboard quickly.

Yes, they were connecting from a different terminal, but this is LAX where these terminals are really close together, unlike
LHR.

Dave Noble

Except where is such a right?

In the US, there is mandatory compensation when denied boarding due to an oversale - would not apply in this case

EC compensation can apply for denied boarding, however the wording states

That the passengers are arriving on a flight where MCT is no longer met would be a reasonable reason from what I can see

Also , it reads that rebooking was initiated by AA due to the delay, again would be another reason BA would not be liable for compensation

paul4040

The airlines really can't win here, can they?

AA/BA were proactive. Someone on the ground saw the delay, looked at the proper transfer route and calculated that the passengers wouldn't make it. It was good practice to rebook the passengers at the earliest opportunity and its a shame they are criticised for doing so.

Ultimately, the passengers did make it because unbeknownst to the ground staffer who made "the call", they were able to access a route which they should not have had access to.

It is a shame that such proactiveness has been decried. We all want airlines to be proactive during IRROPS after all.

Enigma368

I think some facts are being twisted here. The only reason the regular foot route to connect to this flight would have been made impossible would have been because we were offloaded and therefore (it sounds like) the BP would not have scanned at TBIT security - so in a sense it was their actions that then made this foot connection impossible. As far as I can tell it was not impossible or even improbable by the time they made the decision - although again I do not know how much time they need to transfer baggage.

I think many people who know the layout at LAX would agree that 30mins by foot from an arrivals gate at T4 to a departure gate at TBIT is at least feasible if they are willing to move fast and security is not unusually busy - the distances are very small.

Things are getting a bit trolly here... Nobody is saying that AA or BA are evil or that they set out to screw us over. I at no point during this process shouted at staff or even argued with them. I felt the individual staff were all very helpful, esp at BA. Again - they probably thought they were being proactive but in this case I just felt they pulled the trigger slightly too soon and ended up being a little bit too efficient. They gave up on us a bit too quickly. Selling a 95min connection to 30+ pax and then offloading them when it turns out they will now only have about 60mins to connect just seems possibly a little excessive.

Also I think most people would agree that it was unfortunate that AA staff gave us conflicting advice as this made the situation confusing and stressful - more so for some of the other pax who were nearly in tears. Overall though, on the scale of bad things airlines can do - this is still pretty minor.

Had they rebooked us for the next day's flight but at the same time said "by all means still try for this one", then I would be saying that they did everything perfectly.


p.s. I got my bag back last night. I'm sure some people were getting worried about this :P

Swanhunter

Yes, I do. At airports all over the world on a daily basis airlines and their handling staff make this happen. I personally have made far shorter connections at major hub airports as a result of the airline trying to make things work for their customers.

Kgmm77

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 8_3 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/600.1.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/8.0 Mobile/12F70 Safari/600.1.4)

I have a very different understanding of the word pro-active than you.

I expect airlines to be pro-active in doing everything in their power to help passengers make a connection, save for materially delaying a flight.

This forum loves nothing better than assembling an army of detailed strawmen, looking at every possible micro-process & outcome. But sometimes it's easier, as Swanhunter said, to look at outcomes rather than process and accept that other airlines manage these situations much better.

wolf72

Hope you don't think I was being hard on you or anything.