Dino2020

Have to take my hat off to BA today. I booked assistance as I've damaged my ankle and can't really walk at the moment and it's thrown more than a spanner in the works for our trip to BOS tomorrow.

Anyway so we land at T5 and low and behold they have to use buses and no assistance shows up.. So the captain not happy at this puts me on the crew bus so I can at least get a seat then goes and finds a wheelchair once we hit the terminal.. the crew are giving us tips on where to go and what to do while the captain is pushing me around... you couldnt make it up! These ladies and gentlemen were absolute class

capin

I'm often critical of BA, especially the management. BA has some FANTASTIC crews, I feel sorry for them (especially mixed fleet).

1010101

Little surprise on the assistance not turning up but well done to the Captain - I suppose that's partly why they are in that position ^

Petrus

Good to hear.
Proves the old adage that if you have content motivated staff taking some pride in their job service will be delivered. Result is happy customers.

Isn't it great how BA management are driving this agenda within the organisation?

pennineuk

Assistance is provided by third parties, Omniserve at LHR I think, and there has been widespread criticism of their performance. I don't know whether they have some sort of monopoly at LHR, but BA management need to put pressure on the contractors as it's letting the side down for a particular vulnerable group of passengers.

red duster

I agree, assistance at LHR is by far the worst i have encountered.
Most if not all assistance in airports is provided by third parties and they seem to get it right, on our recent trip, EDI,DUB,PHL,LAS, all were top notch taking me to/from aircraft & to/from lounges without a problem LHR on both journeys was a shambles.

corporate-wage-slave

I think this illustrates a couple of things. Firstly when something bad happens, in the right hands, service recovery can fully rectify the impact. And secondly how poor things are for those with disabilities at Heathrow. I know BA completely complain to HAL about it, but this is the legal responsibility of airports in Europe. I don't think it's Omniserv per se that is the issue, since they run this facility at other airports and get good ratings. This report came out just over a week ago, it's a pity it came out when many stakeholders would be off work. It is drawn from a large survey of users, organised by the CAA. Four airports came out as poor: Exeter, East Midlands, Manchester and Heathrow. Six came out as "Very good", including GLA and INV. Norwich was given a particular high citing, due to the way it built relationships with disability organisations in East Anglia and their focus on hidden disabilities. EDI was highlighted as an airport that has moved from Poor to Good (20 airports in this group), and that's an Omniserv airport.

http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/...port_FINAL.pdf

Disembarking was particularly highlighted as a problem area.

Pascoe

I would go so far as to say (and this is a general not an airline thing) that service recovery done well (and I mean really well) can be a massive differentiator, at least for me personally.

Anyone can run a consistent level of service when the gremlins aren't running amok through their logistics, but the way that problems are overcome really shows up a company in good or bad light.

Why? It's simple imho - this is where, even in the modern, increasingly electronic and automated age, the most 'high touch', human interactions occur.

At which point you want three things;

Staff with an attitude that they take personal responsibility for rectification of whatever the situation is, and to try and do so with as much good grace as they can muster, given the severity of whatever the disruption is

Empowerment from management for said staff to use SOME measure of personal judgement and common sense in order to find the best / most creative route. Reduction to a minimum the instances of 'Sorry, computer says no!';

Clear and regular communication for longer timeline issues, to remove the feeling of disempowerment from customers. This also has the double benefit, not visible and often not well understood by organisations, that customers, armed with all current information, are more likely to take proactive decisions of their own (call time on waiting for a rebooking on same day and get an airport hotel so they can turn up refreshed again tomorrow or whatever - just an example). Why is this important? Because there is an uplift in mood from simply being proactive a lot of the time, and also less likelyhood of feeling that absolutely everything that happens is being 'done to them' by the airline. If people don't make any personal decisions, it's unlikely they'll feel any personal responsibility for the outcomes. Whereas if they get facts (or even get an honest assessment of what the knows and unknowns are) they make decisions and get a buy-in to the results.

Seems basic but I see it fail in organisations over and over again. And the airline and airport management industry is in that negative sweet spot ('sour spot'???) of having a logistically complex operations model, with very high touch interactions when things go wrong, and a customer base that have a big emotional stake in it's smooth running (whether it's a biz trip or a holiday, flights not happening / baggage missing etc is almost always a huge pain).

So it's high stakes logistics.

Dino2020

Manchester were amazing with assistance 10 mins from being collected to being in the lounge. Then took me to plane door with a smile and conversation about AA pulling out of MAN. Couldn't fault them at all.