krispy84

I was being a little flippant. We don't even know who the ticketing carrier is, BA or AA? Care to enlighten us OP?

bibbju

Definitely lost me at "slacks, sports coat and ball cap". One item on it's own isn't great but the triple threat has me on hold to 0800-FASHION POLICE to see if the OP's deportation can be speeded up.

WhIteSidE

Ticketed on 001 (AA) stock.

And the sport coat was.much lighter blue. Also, neutral grey golf shirt .and I said orange, not red.

WhIteSidE

By slacks I mean charcoal gery of course, not khakis.

madfish

OP should note that there was another issue st LGW yesterday which resulted in another 777 having to return to LGW mid-flight. Not sure what happened to the passengers but they may also have needed rebooking and therefore adding to the issues experienced.

When I Travel The World

There was also BA2263 today (wednesday) that diverted on route to KIN due to this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ess-class-row/

KeaneJohn

Surly you would have thought that they could got a few coaches and whilst people were en route to LHR any hotels could have been booked.. it does seem shambolic.

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhIteSidE

LGW-JFK on 4/26. I connected from Heathrow, and while still at LHR I begged them to let me on the direct LHR-JFK, or better yet, book me on LHR-LAX (since LAX was my final destination), as the flight was already showing a 30 minute delay. No dice. Absolutely refused.

No dice there, although hindsight makes it appear that it should have been allowed, it was, at that moment in time, a voluntary change you were requesting, as longhaul flights need to be delayed by 5 hours (or cause a missed connection) to permit a involuntary reroute under current published policy. (2 hrs s/h). Unless the then 30 minute delay was enough to cause a misconx at JFK, the staff at LHR weren't allowed to rebook you.

Quote:

At the BA checkin desk, they had just 2-3 people to handle all the disruption arrangements for a nearly full 777. They also had 4 ticketing agents, 3 of them those who had abandoned post at the lounge earlier (which is why I assume they abandoned their posts and didn't simply go off shift).

The staffing level was definitely inadequate and embarrassing. With the staff who left the lounge, they may have been reassigned somewhere else, but someone else should probably have taken their place. Were there no BA staff left in the lounge after they went, or just no ticketing staff? I wonder why BA didn't start rebooking some pax in the lounge first, splitting the ticketing staff up.

Quote:

Originally Posted by krispy84

I would also add that I don't think it's reasonable to expect BA to rebook the second segment ex-LAX that is on a fully AA PNR.

Quote:

Originally Posted by justforfun

Why not? That is the OP's final destination, and the entire itinerary was purchased as one ticket.

Quote:

Originally Posted by krispy84

Which AA subsequently split in 2, as related by the OP in post 1.

Even if the PNR had been split, if SMF were on the same tkt, BA absolutely had the responsibility and ability to rebook that too. AA PNR, AA tkt, no problem; I did it several times when I worked for BA because I was meant to (and could).

simons1

You just need BA to lie about the cause of the cancellation in order to deny EC261 compensation. Then you will be able to shout bingo.

Not good, but BA always struggles with IRROPS. A combination of cutting staff and dumbing down I fear. Many staff with experience of these situations have been moved on in favour of outsourcing or cheaper contracts.

WhIteSidE

That flight didn't get back to LGW until 23:28. I would have loved a seat for that second round kicked off.

IAMORGAN

The salient point is that the flight was ultimately cancelled and the 30 minute delay was a rolling delay

Sounds like another BA mess. As others say, not surprised, don't expect any help / care from BA these days. As others say, as a LCC, BA aren't interested.

I think you will be due EC 261 compensation. Make sure you claim every penny.

DYKWIA

It would be very tempting to print a couple of hundred pages of EU261 regulations while in the lounge. And then hand them out whilst watching the inevitable rebooking carnage.

flatlander

That's really crappy service from BA.

Last time BA crapped out on me when I had an AA ticket, instead of talking to BA I called the AA EP line directly who did rebook me. The EP line clearly felt I should have got BA to handle it but immediately helped me none the less. I would consider that worth trying if, like me or WhIteSidE, one has EP status and is flying on an AA-issued ticket.

That doesn't excuse BA's failure to handle this well or even as required by law, it only constitutes a pragmatic workaround.

corporate-wage-slave

This doesn't look good overall (that is to say the rebooking process). If you have a 777 full of passengers you would need several dozen agents dedicated to the case, to avoid long queues and stressed out passengers. Outside T5 that isn't going to happen, and in T5 it won't happen late at night. It's rare to come out of an incident like this without a lot of collateral damage.

I would probably have handled this a bit differently. As soon as the aircraft has formally acquired a cancelled status then I would have probably sorted out my own hotel, perhaps staying in LGW since there is more capacity there, and then rang up for options. That wouldn't get me on anything other than a BA or JB flight, which would have worked here, so if necessary the next morning I'd have gone to the airport ticketing desk for any other options. People understandably get very anxious in these situations, but realistically it's best to get some rest and leave the rebooking to the next day, rather than join a long queue of tetchy passengers.

For hotels in London, BA pay up to £200 without quibble, and if there were no rooms below that price - unusual but not unprecedented - they still have to pay up under the Regulation.

ahmetdouas

Absolutely CWS but you have to remember many passengers do not have that much money on them to just book a 200 GBP a night hotel without worrying about going over their credit limit, and then waiting for BA to pay them a month or so later. And with the way BA's reputation is at the moment, I doubt many passengers would even believe that BA will pay them for booking their own hotel, even though the regulation provides for it!

BA should have dealt with this better. The main issue here seems to be lack of staffing, and unwillingness to pay for hotels. The fact that people were left without hotels overnight is absolutely disgraceful in my book. This is London, not the Sahara Dessert.