Taylorhmct

​​​​​​​Well said. I feel for all airline staff who are going through this currently.

Kgmm77

Clearly getting aircraft out and back is a huge challenge in fog and there's not much that can be done about that, but why would baggage handling take so long?

I presume despite the fog being forecast a week in advance and the number of arrivals were only a fraction of a normal day (given cancellations) BA was unable to keep enough handlers working late. Hard to argue that aspect is outside their control.

20Rothmans

Whoever handles BA's Twitter remains calm under fire:

Hi Dave, most of our disruption yesterday was caused due to fog. We're not aware of losing any cabin crew.

r00ty

I wondered the same yesterday evening. As I said on my previous post (which will be serialized in the Sunday Times). I suspect (and it is purely speculation) that when the fog cleared BA (rightly) bulk cleared flights to get them out (probably many close to crew time limits). All those planes arriving so late at night, they probably just didn't have the staff on hand at that time of the evening to handle that.

simons1

Easyjet's 'duty of care' bill will be quite high on that then - 6 nights hotel rooms and meals etc for multiple people. Perhaps when the dust has settled they might pull their fingers out a bit.

simons1

It isn't hard to argue at all.

The late arrival of many flights (after baggage handlers had gone home) was a direct result of the fog. Good luck to anyone trying to construct an argument there, personally I wouldn't waste the cost of a postage stamp.

PaulN

Agreed. There's no excuse for abuse even in these situations.

However, lots of organisations, including my own, are let down by the lack of information provided during delays and disruption.

Rather than make everybody wait for and undertake a 1:1 discussion with staff to find out what they need to know, much better use could be use of 1:many information - taking the example from a previous poster whiteboards saying "go home and submit a baggage delay form online" could cut the queues by 50% or more and the frustration by 100%.

I had a long delay in PUJ last year and one could see the staff getting hassled by a procession of individuals asking for the same info ("when are we leaving"). The captain came into the terminal and addressed most of the passengers with detailed information and the mood lightened and the questions reduced.

Kgmm77

I wasn't talking about compensation?

I was talking about BA's inability to flex baggage handling staff despite days notice of the weather.

None of what has happened of the last few days was a surprise. Yet BA is always left to survive on the wits & goodwill of its staff and passengers.

When you only have one product and one geographic location from which you trade, you really need to be excellent at recovering from stuff like this.

What is encouraging is that the rebooking element is definitely better than it was a few years ago.

simons1

BA can't win on this. If they decided a couple of days in advance to 'flex' the hours of handlers and then it turned out to be a clear day then exactly the same people would be on here to moan that there were insufficient staff in the daytime.

And whilst you may not have mentioned compensation there have been a few others that have.

As for the 'one geographic location' - don't people stranded in other locations count? Only people in Terminal 5 get affected by these things?

Kgmm77

99.x% of BA flights start or end in London, that's what I meant by one location.

I suppose as someone who has spent half a working lifetime preparing organisations for stuff that's a lot less likely to happen than bad weather, I feel BA has areas it could improve significantly in these situations.

If it wanted to of course.

ssnz

Hi All

Thanks for the comments, appreciate the time being taken.

I won't go over point by pony as it will take a life of its own.

I wasn't actually looking for compensation, just clarifying as I wasn't sure, that's why I regard out to you folk over here on the BA forum.

With regard to the 747, I appreciate BA making h effort. As for the journey, it was OK. Short of course. Have to say I found the cabin old and dowdy (and dirty). The latter maybe due to turnaround. As someone who regularly flies F on QF and EK I get the feeling I'd be fairly disappointed if I'd paid for that long haul.

As for the general circumstances, for the record I just wore it. I didn't shout at staff, in fact I took a second to recognise to one that they must have had a long day and be tired. At the end of my very log and frustrating day where I'd paid good cash for a Club ticket I sat on the floor with many others and just waited, tired, thirsty and hungry. My reference to 'useless' was really the lack of anything communication wise - could have been so so much better. They must have had some idea as to the state of play when I checked in and simply being informed it was a .... show at LHR would have given me the personal choice to decide a plan if attack like rebook or take Eurostar. The useless part was the lack of communication and so on. I didn't find staff helpful and I did witness a BA staff member about at a group and the them to 'just shut up and listen' - that's not good enough.

Its a loose loose, but BA could have made more effort in my opinion to smooth things over. I do think the baggage delay is unacceptable. That's just opinion.

Again, thanks for the feedback. Happy New Year to all.

quakered

Should have taken the train.....

ssnz

Exaclty - and if I'd been given any indication by BA of the likely scenario I happily would have