Rollout of Altéa's FLY - new Departure Control System
 

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere. Please add to any open thread.

Got to LBA this morning to check-in for the 9.30. 3 desks were open but 3 people with iPads were standing behind. Seemed to be an issue. 1 family ahead of us being served and we waited patiently.

We got to the desk. Flying to Kuala Lumpur on BA and then connecting to Malaysian to Singapore. Boarding passes for all 3 flights. They couldn't book the bags through. 3 people trying, on the phone for guidance. Then seemed that same happened to another family at the next desk . Then some discussion if it was a system issue. The bags were given manual handwritten tags and we were told to ask in the CCR or at a BA desk on arrival at lhr for the bags to be manually added to the Malaysian flight. They photographed the tags and said that they would also keep trying. They did ask us if we agreed to manual tags which made me a bit worried ( not massively it's just luggage)

We were a long time but so were all if the 3 queues as there seemed to be general issues. We were in the priority queue and there was no-one waiting.behind us. Towards the end a man joined the priority queue. When we finished with the check in staff really apologising he looked at me and said something like about time! Really annoyed me as the staff were doing their best and his wait was minimal- we had waited longer before we were called up.

So got in the plane. Took off approx 40 minutes late as the captain explained that leeds was one of a number of airports trialing a new baggage system. The bags didn't tally and they were having to check them the old fashioned way? Felt a bit guilty it might be our manual tags causing the issue.

Got to lhr and went to desk at transfers. Didn't have a clue what we were going on about. Just looked blank. bTw massive queue just to go through transfer as only 1 desk open.

Got to CCR and they say the bags are now checked through, unsure if they did it or leeds kept on trying

Advised to double check with Malaysia when we get to Kl.

Wonder if they will make it? 7 hours at lhr in transit and about 3 at kl so should be ok.

Where else is piloting the new baggage system? We arrived from leeds about 30 mins late but plane is usually early. BA transit staff at gate to meet a few passengers.

It's not a new baggage system it's a completely new departure control system called FLY. LBA has been the first to go live and I believe a European station is next, due to come to LHR sometime next year, hopefully after all the teething problems have been ironed out.

Oh god, why have we been chosen as guinea pigs? Couldn't BA have chosen a less important route, perhaps MAN? :p

Actually I saw a little of this as they were showing it at the open day back in June. I seem to remember the graphic they had on the board behind their stand showed LBA on it so I guess this may be why. I spoke to a BA person who was describing that this new system would be rolled out across BA over the next few years.

It's the future, with FLY you are an individual, not a PNR... :confused:

Not quite sure what this really means, but I guess we'll find out...

Otopeni Airport, Bucharest has now switched over.

There were 4 people trying to check our bags in. They tried everything. They didn't tell us it was a new system, that only came from the captain.

Singapore isn't a bad place to have no luggage so I am not over worried. They have always made it eventually before.

Had a chat with a very friendly Agent at JFK about this the other day, JFK & LHR will be last to go live.

Anyone got any links or explanations as to what the benefits of this FLY system are over the current one?

I'll try and paraphrase based on what I've read from BA's company-wide magazine, but I think a lot of it has been said already.

BA's existing system for customer management and departure control is called cDCS/PRS - you might have seen it on staff computers. It's essentially a character-based system with a blue or green background - think MS DOS! The system hails from the 1960s and has obviously been tweaked and upgraded over the years but it's old, outdated and not user- or customer-friendly.

BA is switching to an Amadeus system called Altéa, which has lots of different modules for flight-related tasks. It's not just at the airport that the system is going to be introduced, non-airport functions including reservations will be using it. I recently spent a day at Network Ops at Waterside and time with Central Load Control (CLC), who manage aircraft loading - they're already using the Altéa module for aircraft loading, for example.

FLY is the front-end of the new Amadeus system for departure control and customer management, customised by BA for the airline with input and testing from customer service staff. The new system has a web-style interface and is supposed to be more user-friendly and intuitive. There are specific flows for certain procedures and in normal circumstances, it's all a case of tapping ENTER and the system guides staff through the flow in a logical sequence, asking for information where required. Everything is colour-coded too and the system, and indeed the Altéa system in general, automates a lot of the work. The idea is that staff spend less time staring their computer screens and more time interacting with the customer, in order to deliver the BA service hallmarks. cDCS/PRS is also a flight-based system, whereas FLY is customer-based - you look up a customer and on your screen there are tabs of pages of different information, including details of a customer's history with the airline. When it comes to boarding, one screen in FLY will show the information from seven different screens in the existing PRS.

It's going to be a staged rollout, yet one aspect of the system is that once a flight is "created" in FLY, it is no longer accessible on the old system, which may lead to difficulties dealing with inbound flights from outstations already using FLY. Heathrow and Gatwick will switch sometime next year.

And, on a day like today, FLY should come in handy too: in disruption, staff will be able to rebook customers onto the next BA flight with one keystroke, rather than the current eight or nine...

Hope that's helpful!

Just to add that despite handwritten tags our bags did arrive in Singapore having gone lba to Lhr to kul to Singapore. We did ask the ccr staff and the Malaysian lounge staff to check they were being manually added to our flights which they did as we were asked to do. But in the end it worked well but we did have a 9 hr connection at Lhr and 4 hrs at kl.

Agreed - interesting.

I was also interested to note that I saw a 'FLY' login screen on a machine at the arrivals lounge entrance the other week.

You're both very welcome!

As FLY is now live in some outstations, flights leaving those outstations will be in FLY and only FLY. For that reason, even though Heathrow (and to a lesser extent Gatwick) haven't transitioned, to receive these flights and deal with transit passengers etc. they need to have access to FLY and know how to use it. I believe there was focus placed on getting transfer staff training complete before the switchover began. I imagine that's why you saw FLY in the arrivals lounge MPH1980. I believe there's also an iPad app for staff available to help deal with the problems that will arise from having two different systems live and some flights in one system and some in the other.

I'm currently sat on the ground in GVA and experiencing my first FLY-related delay (just informed by the captain it's likely to be 1.5 hours+)

Apparently the entire FLY system is down worldwide. The issue on our flight (BA725) is that we have 2 no shows and no way of working out who they are and if they have bags in the hold.

The ground staff are about to offload ALL hold baggage onto the tarmac and then have passengers go down in groups to identify theirs.

Sounds like I'm in for a fun morning...