crazyanglaisy

Well, I'm certainly one of the very lucky ones today. After 90 minutes on hold to the GGL line trying to get on to the BA16 from SIN to LHR, I gave up and got on with my day. Arrived at SYD check-in to find a nice shiny, gold SQ boarding pass waiting for me to replace the cancelled BA12. They'd even gone over to the Singapore Airlines desks to print it out for me. Great work, BA.

sammyg901

with every (snow) cloud there is a silver lining! That is a result - enjoy the flight !

stephem

Well, I understand the weather and that this was supposed to be rain in London. But here is the deal, that was early in the morning and BA should have a business process in place to help get people re-accomodated. I get that there were no stands so we sat on the taxiways after landing. But nobody was doing squat to help me, not even some team of re-bookers outside of Heathrow. This isnt the first time something like this has happened. I sense BA has no "cavalry" to call in or business process to click on when these things happen because the management has just cut back to the bone

As a result, I wasted a whole day in the airport when I should have just left and gotten the EuroStar. But the people in the Concorde Room told me that when my flight was still scheduled to leave I couldnt ditch that segment or I would risk losing my ride back home later in the week. So BA waited until 60 minutes out to cancel nearly all these flights in the late afternoon. By the time they cancelled mine, all the Eurostar inventory for Sunday and Monday morning was gone.

This was atrocious for any class of travel, but it irks me that I was actually in F and given no support at all or cut loose at a time in the day when I could have made my own way to Brussels. I am on the phone with AA right now, they sold me the ticket. Once I told my story to the agent and explained that my group would be going on without me tomorrow morning and I have no reason to be here now, she conceded I have a trip in vain and they will fly me home tomorrow and issue a refund. The worst part is they have to put me on BA metal. Boo, I am staying away from BA for a while now. AA is nothing great, but the American carriers know how to do service recovery and re-accommodating far better than BA.

dutch_122

update Amsterdam disruptions

BA442 LHR-AMS
BA443 AMS-LHR
BA444 LHR-AMS

cancelled due weather

12th of December

BA423 AMS-LHR

KeaneJohn

Not wanting to derail this thread as with 70plus cancellations for Monday due to affect some 15000 people I wanted to say this for me is a true example of where FLYERTALK simply excels itself. With our resident expect CWS and on the ground reports from other readers there is a true community spirit that really helps people immensely and has got to go some way to making such circumstances a little more bearable. Sadly a lot of the people affected won’t have that benefit.

The hints, tips and guidance is second to none and this for me far outweighs some more let’s just say judgemental threads that sometimes appear here.

That said. I do think BA/HAL could potentially cope better... it’s not the oh you should have known snow was coming On social media there’s some truly horrific driving conditions on the M25 around Staines it’s the rebooking/getting people out of T5 general irrops ha doing that seems to be woeful and putting immense pressure on staff. I don’t proclaim to be an expert but how different are these cancellations to the IT issue in May? Was nothing learnt from that incident that could be used in this?

Safe travels everybody,

BingBongBoy

Well, both the 285 and 287 were cancelled today, meaning there will be a healthy backlog of punters to be accommodated ahead of staff, confirmed or non, to get back to London... So, lets pray the station manager abides by the Confirmed status, and if offloaded, appropriate accommodation and expenses are paid for...

BingBongBoy

There is no "could" about it. BA and HAL are woefully prepared for any sort of disruption, and quite frankly don't care. For the amount of times it happens on the scale of today, they just fudge it and move along. Look how long it took them to invest in snow clearing equipment that was fit for purpose...! And, yet, are left without enough staff able to operate it. I believe a lot of it, still parked over by T5C has never been used "in anger" and probably won't be due to lack of staff.

Has been the same all the time I worked there, and I doubt it will ever change.

snaxmuppet

As my flight (BA66 PHL- LHR 11 Dec) was not cancelled because of weather (it was cancelled because BA67 LHR - PHL was cancelled because of weather) I am assuming I can claim EC261 compensation. Am I correct?

I am expecting to receive 600EUR per passenger. Is that correct? I was rerouted to BA66 24hrs later (12 Dec).

Is EC261 compensation in addition to hotel accommodation, meals and travel to the airport?

I have secured a hotel for the night at $135. What is reasonable for meals for a 24hr delay?

jpdx

I am booked on a (non-cancelled, as of now) noon-time flight today. I assume T5 will be a bit of a zoo. I checked in online, but need to drop a bag. How early do I need to go to the airport? Any tricks such as bag-drop counters in a less obvious location that might have shorter lines? Thanks!

aks120

Well I was one of the ones that had a bit of an adventure yesterday. Flew back from Zagreb to........ Cardiff! The flight was 4 hours late getting airborne in the first place but Zagreb ground staff kept us updated and we got a voucher for food. The FO and CSM came out to chat to us all about what was going and to be honest all pax that I saw took the delay in their stride.

We were told before boarding that Y had no food to buy as it was all sold on way out which gave folks the chance to buy stuff - in CE all was as expected! Still a crappy salad or beef panini

Where I would have thought we should start our descent, the Captain said we were actually diverting to Cardiff and explained why.

On landing we were quickly met by ground staff - there was hope of a hotel but then we were told we would be getting on a bus instead - buses arrived pretty quickly after we had disembarked and we were soon on our way. Ground staff were visible throughout to answer questions but again, I saw no angst from pax.

Three hours later, and 8 hours later than planned we arrived back at LHR and all I saw was carnage! The longest taxi queue that I have ever seen.

Again fortune smiled on me as there were 2 buses waiting to take people to business parking so no delay other than trying to battle through people getting taxis and Hoppas. Oh and my one worry would be the additional parking fees but the barrier just raised and I was on my way!!

All in all I thought BA handled the issues with my flight very well and while we were delayed by quite a significant time, I could not help feeling we were some of the lucky ones!

This post is only meant to show people that sometimes BA do get it right with this sort off stuff and to wish everyone good luck today!

Regards

aks120

OnslowSW7

So here is today’s learning. After managing to get through to the GGL line at 4.30am, it turns out they can only rebook on BA/OW flights. I want to fly Aer Lingus from DUB and avoid LHR altogether, but the only way to do that is to go to the airport. Call centres can’t help. Ohhhh what a pity. Now at the airport with the predictable mad queues...

haapalainen

I am happy to notice that BA finally automatically rebooked us to a AY flight for Monday during the night. So they are still working to rebook affected passengers as this rebook happened about 12h after the initial cancellation. So didn't need to call in the end at all!

nufnuf77

It was quite bad at NCL, there are 5 planes leaving in the space of next 4 hours. There are 3 agents, bless them, and everybody needs rebooking - all planes show empty on EF. I got myself through GGL line on the first morning departure in 1C, but others might not be so lucky.

CUPPSIT

Quite an unusual sight at Cardiff this morning... Must be at least 6 ba planes on the ground (mix of 319,320,321). All completely turned off and locked up, so I'm guessing none of them will be back in service for a while.

I'm really glad that after my LHR-DUB (843) was cancelled last night that I decided to reroute CWL-DUB instead!

Good luck to anyone going through T5 today.

BlackBerryAddict

Stuck in Munich at the moment since yesterday's cancellation. Rebooked for today (Monday) but already seeing several more cancellations today. Maybe a stupid question but if my rebooked flight is still showing OK, do we wait for that? Or will it be cancelled, and should I simply try to get an alternative to Gatwick ASAP?