What takes place in a crew briefing before each flight? Off the top of my head I can think of obvious things like how many pax are on board, if there are any wheelchair access pax, any Prem's etc etc but what else? Plus for all the crew to formally meet each other before boarding? Do the flight-deck crew pass brief the CC regarding expected route, weather conditions, expected delays?

All of the above, plus a knowledge check on safety/security/medical procedures.
Will also include special meals, position allocations if the SCCM hasn’t already done so, a check on whether the crew members are acclimatised, how long the maximum FDP is etc. The CSM will usually also give their expectations for the service as well.
On long haul briefings the flight crew will always make an appearance and introduce themselves and give flight duration and route info. However, on short haul you may not meet the pilots until you reach the aircraft due to having different trip itineraries.

Thanks for explanation....FDP?

Flight Duty Period (amount of time before we go out of hours).

Evening all. Just wondering when flying on a codeshare - booked through BA but non-OW, what information gets transferred to the operating airline?
For instance flying on a through ticket BA-AS, do Alaska have any idea you are a BA frequent flyer or is it just the basics they’re given?

Since Alaska has been accepted as a future member, I would guess it depends on how far along the membership process they are as to how much they communicate with other oneworld members.
Without knowing your date of flight Alaska could even be a member by then.

There’s a standard IATA protocol for data sharing where journeys involve two different carriers. There’s no difference in this process for alliance or non-alliance, and it includes FFP data if you’ve put it in the booking, but not if you haven’t. Unless I’m mistaken, in Amadeus this is under a FQTV keyword.

Separate to this process, alliances facilitate central sharing of certain FF data, which is where (for example) oneworld carriers will identify tier status. This is not part of the standard IATA data flow but is added later.

Within joint businesses, there will be enhanced data sharing for itineraries that qualify under the specific ATI for that journey. Again, this is bilateral (or multilateral) between the airlines involved, but will supplement rather than replace the standard IATA flow above.

Hello. Been lurking for a while but first time posting as I have a nagging question.

With my work I have a Seaman's book and usually fly with a seaman's ticket (fully flexible and 2x 23kg baggage allowance). When I have flown other airlines (AF, LH, QR, CX etc.) I have always been asked to provide my seaman's book at check in, or to provide a signing on letter from a vessel. When I've flown BA I have never been asked to provide any of this information nor has it been mentioned that I am on a seaman's ticket.

With flying regularly this does stand out that BA never asks, so any help as to why would be great.



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Welcome to Flyertalk Argoat. BA does a lot of Marine and Offshore travel, so perhaps at a certain point they don't worry too much. Cathay would too, but their training is perhaps more firm on checking bona fides generally. But the more likely reason is that BA has a front end to the check-in process called FLY, which in the case of Heathrow also has a further app called Ready to Fly. So things like the baggage allowance and ticket restrictions are all in there, visible to BA staff, and what BA staff need to concentrate on are those areas where there would be visa issues (e.g. Filipino mariners going to Gibraltar when a diversion may be on the radar). The other factor is that frequent flyer status on BA is a common thing, so having 2 bags in World Traveller isn't terribly surprisiing compared to some airlines.

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Thank you very much, clears up something I've wondered for a few years.

Further to what CWS said, the Seaman fare appears, in both FLY and legacy system (PRS) as an SK keyword if memory serves me right, which automatically populates the right information in terms of baggage allowance and so on. It also feeds the regulatory requirements for immigration. The one place where I remember there being a caveat was Gibraltar GIB. Old PRS had a prompt, in those flights, to offload Seafarers in the event of possible diversion to Valencia or other airports in Spain.

Great thank you. Much more of an answer than I expected.

Hi. Have a quick question about a recent BA trip. Was supposed to fly from MAN-LHR, spend 18hrs in LHR and then fly from LHR to my final destination.

However, at the airport, I was not allowed to check-in at the desk because I did not have the QR code for my PCR test. I printed off my PCR test result showing I was negative (thankfully) but didn't think I'd need the QR code. Tried to log-on to my email to get it, but no mobile data and I got there a bit late, which was my bad - but meant I couldn't check-in.

Was told my ticket would be marked as a no-show because of this, but I have two questions here:


1. I had previously called the BA call centre, spoke to an Indian customer service guy who told me that my flights were not a "connecting flight" so I would need to pay separate baggage fees for each part of my route. But when I spoke to the person at the airport desk, I asked if I could get a train to LHR and get the second leg of my trip to my final destination, But was informed that I could not, and I would be marked as a no-show. Was this true? If I went to LHR would I have been able to check-in for my second flight?


2. I got a new ticket, but I had a fairly poor experience with an attendant on a different BA flight - but if I submit a complaint form, will BA customer relations look into it? Unfortunately, I can't remember the attendant's name and I didn't film the incident.
I'm also not really interested in trying to launch a full investigation or anything that could get them in trouble, but if I want to pass across some feedback to a person that I can't remember - then would the Complaints form suffice? Will it get acted on, but not get them in trouble, or it's not worth the hassle to pass across some minor feedback?



Just curious, thanks!

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum AceX.

For the first point, if you had got to LHR, explained the problem and had all the paperwork ready then as a gesture they probably would have let you on. But yes, normally and formally if you miss the first flight you are deemed a no-show for the entire ticket. If you had one booking reference for both flights, broadly speaking you can through check bags, so you seem to have been incorrectly informed at some point, but there may be specific details that apply here which could change this. If you had 2 separate PNRs (booking references) then I'm fairly sure LHR would have let you through, so long as you had your documentation in order.

For the second point, well to be diplomatic about it, and to give a round-about reply, filming people who don't want or need to be filmed isn't good, so I'm never going to endorse that approach. At ths start you said it was a fairly poor experience, at the end of the same paragraph it became a minor feedback issue. I mean if there was a genuine mistake made, yes we are all human, I wasn't there, so I can't judge, but often people self reflect on things and next time handle things better. All part of growing up, wouldn't you agree? If you aren't confident on this point - so you're sure that someone else best gets involved - then writing to Customer Relations may be valid, so that perhaps a manager will look at it, crew can be identified fairly easily at the moment. Maybe that crew member has "form" and so it's important for that to be managed, but that's the exception. Right now staff have a terribly difficult job, their salaries have been cut, those that are flying have to deal with people who are on edge (at best) and I have a lot of sympathy for them. It can't be easy. Hopefully the rest of your travel experience was better.

Thanks for the response!

Yeah, you're right. I'm happy to just see it as a minor incident with the staff and I'll just move on without filing a complaint. I'm not keen on stressing the staff more, particularly if they are overworked and underpaid.

Thanks again for your reply!

Can any crew report if flights from LHR to HKG actually carry pax? Some FTers on other forums say they do but discussions here suggest that it isn't the case...

Currently, BA32 is a daily passenger service.
BA28 is a freighter service.
All LHR-HKG are freighter only.

Cheers, thought so.

There’s a rumour according to which, from May, HKG gov’t will allow passenger traffic inbound from the UK - my OH has a 5-day HKG scheduled in her roster. Although I think it’s more likely to be wishful thinking and her roster will be amended with a HKG there-and-back, much to her joy I’m sure.

Some small airports have runways where the plane drives along the runway to its end and then does a U-turn to take off.

The U-turn tends to have a guideline painted on the ground.

My feeling is that most turns tends to go right first before turning left to complete the 360.

Is there a reason not to go left first?

normally the initial turn is in the direction of whoever is taxiing the aircraft. Unless the turning pad is designed so you can only turn in one direction

Question for the pilots amongst us. Watched a few of the takeoffs from Heathrow and got me wondering. I've noticed spool up on smaller aircraft is pretty much instant, i.e. they rev the engines in one go, whereas for the larger aircraft you hear an initial increase for a few seconds before the pilot applies full throttle. Is this to do with the size of the aircraft or the engine type? or something else.

Thanks in adv.

Bigger engines such as rr trents take longer to spool up. Also one needs to check that all engines are doing the same, whichtakes a moment longer on 4 engined aircraft.

That makes perfect sense. Thanks for that

Just to add a little more to rapidex; we set an initial spool up setting that equates to around circa 40-45% of the engines rated power dependant on engine type. On GEs CFMs and CFs it’s a percentage of N1(front of engine) fan speed. On the likes of RRs or IAEs it’s an engine pressure ratio or EPR. This enables any early gremlins to be identified but also allows for uniform and symmetric application of the take off power/thrust setting for that particular take off.
There is a spool up prior to the final application of take off power regardless of type. I think only Concorde avoided that and even turbo prob types do this.
Personally I’ve found RRs take the longest to achieve the take off thrust setting from hitting the TOGA switches. CFM 56s on the 737s would spoil up fast but would pause for a moment prior to ‘trimming’ up to the final N1setting. This prevented the auto throttle over setting the take off N1. Pretty much all engines ‘gain’ from a ram rise effect during the take off run. I find that from commuting on the 320 fleet that they spool up quite quickly but the NEOs seem to take slightly longer too, but with larger fan blades this is hardly surprising.

Might this be something to do with the three-spool structure of the engine?

No doubt at all.

In the good old days with the rb211, the Captain would set the initial thrust and the Flight Engineer was responsible for setting take off thrust. That was before toga switches.

It was FADEC that replaced the engineer, toga switches existed with the rb211

Thank you for taking the time to do this. This was really interesting and informative

Nice to see the Ask the Staffer thread back - as I’m sure there will be a few questions regarding changes in this new travel day and age.

I flew BA today on 209 - LHR-MIA, and noticed a new addition to the crew, and was curious about it.

As well as the cabin service manager, who I guess is responsible for the whole crew etc, there was another silver tie cabin crew member, who spent a long time coming up and introducing himself, and welcoming us gold card (and above) back on board. He spent a good 5+ minutes with each of us in Club - about 5 of us I noted. His job title badge - sorry I forget the exact title - was like Cabin Experience Manager - or words to that effect. Not one I had seen before. He seemed extra to the 2 crew assigned to each side of the airplane, but mucked in as where required, delivering food drinks etc.

He came by often, especially to the GCH’s, to check everything was alright inflight, did we need anything else, asking if anything not quite right etc.
I fed back that from wheels up to first drink offer - 1 hour and 15 mins, was too long IMO. He agreed, and said crew were being flung onto aircraft and not sure what was where etc, and it was just taking a little bit longer, on the now totally full TATL flights. Meal service to tray removal, was almost 3 hours from takeoff. I mean I don’t care much as its a day flight, and I haven’t got much else to do, but on a night flight return, that might be an issue for some.

Wonder from those in the know, if this is a permanent position, or just a thing whilst BA get back in to their groove….. the CSM didn’t come speak to us once, just got on with her job. Which was fine, as the other crew member did the FF welcome pleasantries instead.

These roles appear intermittently on flights as part of the QA / Crew Management process. (And when they fancy a jolly)

More shafts, blades etc = more inertia to overcome. But also larger (and newer) engines have higher airflow ratios and need to carefully manage the airflow between compression and combustion. If they spool up too quickly they can force more air into the engine than it can use.

There is a spool up time requirement for civilian aircraft, from memory i think it is 6 seconds?

These are individuals who used to be Inflight Business Managers. They were all split up and some of them are now 'Customer Experience Managers'. They're ground based but sometimes fly to observe the cabin service and see what is or isn't working. Allegedly they're also there to support crew back from furlough. Strangely enough, you see them a fair bit on MIA/JFK/ORD/IAD etc but not so much (i.e never) on the BLR/ISB/LHE/LOS/MAA. Funny that.

Hong Kong Crews

I follow a Cathay Pacific B748F pilot on Instagram and she, along with over 100 CX crew were ‘detained’ in Hong Kong’s quarantine facilities last week due to 3 CX pilots contracting Covid on a Frankfurt stop-over. While most of the CX crews have now been released, I read that a BA crew were detained this past weekend and could be held for up to 21 days in quarantine, which is certainly not what any crew have signed up to. How is the entire HKG quarantine situation impacting crewing for these flights (I am guessing nobody wants to staff these flights given the above issues) and are BA looking at bringing back the no-crew stay down route option for this service?

Pilot37

I too have seen the account to which you refer. For reasons known to the BA flight crew community you are unlikely to get a response to this for the time being.

Are they still being detained in breeze block pre-fabs, Camp Tenko style? I'm not sure this is HK's best method for returning to the international stage, but by all accounts that ship sailed some time ago (and possibly on the RYB).

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f08ae82ef.jpeg
Sadly yes - this is Hong Kong’s quarantine camp on Penny Bay

Picture Credit - Not mine but would rather not post their details on this forum.

Pilot37

Tenko would have been an upgrade!

Sorry I know this is O/T, but I don't think there is any intention to do so.