I had the misfortune to be on BA154 yesterday. The plane boarded pushed off and there was even a statement from the FO that we were ahead of schedule. Then the announcement that there was a fault on some component that the engineers would be called to fix (sorry cannot recollect the precise part something critical in slowing the plane speed on landing). Sat on the plane for approximately 2.5 hours to be told that component could not be repaired and everyone needed to get off the plane whilst the last chance to fix the plane was attempted (full power down and power up!). Everyone was held in a holding area for around another hour until unsuprinly we were informed that a new component was needed which had to be flown in and fitted leading to rescheduled flight time of T+1+2 hrs.

Thankfully BA were able to swiftly secure rooms for all at Le Meridien Cairo Hotel with lunch and dinner covered. I had the misfortune earlier in the month to be on a CAI flight from London and based on that experience and a quick search on OTAs considered it highly unlikely that an alternative flight would be forthcoming.

What i found irritating however was BA continuing to post that the flight from London was still showing as on time when it was obvious that there would be a substantial delay. My annoyance came from the fact that i had a needless joirney to the airport the previous week as a result of similar non-timely communication.

My conclusions are this delay seems to be a one-off but there is clearly very little provision to provide for alternatives when problems occur. Ironically for those on a BTB the only concern is a knock on effect on timing for the onward leg since substitution of the plane is not going to happen. In addition the delay may eliminate the cushion of an overnight in Cairo, i posted separately in the BTB thread around how i found that. Again in fairness to BA my EU261 claim was recognized and agreed within a week and i would fully expect the same in this instance. Time is a luxury for me so i would book a similar itinerary again. In addition i had the time for a trip to the pyramids so one off the bucket list!

On the subject of the new lounge I would add it is indeed a positive that an additional security check is no longer needed to access. On the downside my Iphone couldnt even detect the lounge WIFI network which was exacerbated by the fact that once my free 30 minutes of Airport wifi were exhausted I couldnt buy additional access in spite of completing the online payment form. And data roaming only worked intermittently when a 4G network was found and was of course extremely expensive (8MB for £5). I had to resort to sending SMS mesages to communicate at one stage!

Just a couple if points to add/correct following ny fkight back from Cairo today. Firstly the London inbound flight from yesterday operated as per schedule since the plane stranded in Cairo was originally intended for New Orleans today. So there was a timely BA154 departure from Cairo today at 8am and a 26 hour delayed BA154A which i took. The other point of note is that speaking to other passengers they were offered seats yesterday in the same class on the same day Egyptair flight but their corporate policy meant they couldnt not take them up. So all in all seems BA handled a difficult situation well.

EF shows the average reliability over the past two months to be 10% for BA155 (with an average delay of 70 minutes) and 95% for BA154 (with an average delay of 42 minutes).

More detailed delay info from EF:

Does the laptop in carry-on restriction that has been lifted also apply to peripheral devices such as battery packs etc? BA.com isn’t clear.

Also, it looks like the UK DoT site hasn’t been updated as it still excludes Egypt from the list of restrictive countries.

The ban on laptops in carry-ons has been lifted for BA CAI-LHR? I had not heard this. Looking at my itinerary in TripCase still displays the message:


Be advised, because of new UK regulations, electronic devices other than a mobile phone are not allowed onboard this flight. Other devices should be securely packed in your checked baggage.