Stewie Mac

(Not gold, so no golden tickets).
had exceptional service from cabin crew last night in trying circumstances and would love to formally thank them - can someone tell me best way to do so? Thanks

JAXBA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stewie Mac

(Not gold, so no golden tickets).
had exceptional service from cabin crew last night in trying circumstances and would love to formally thank them - can someone tell me best way to do so? Thanks

BA.com/welldone

Confus

Isn’t YYC a 788? In which case no F to sell.

Pilot37

The LHR - BOS rotations operate a B744 on the early flight and then on 6 days a week a B777 on the later flights, but on a Thursday the 4.40pm flight is operated by a B787. What do the crew who operate this flight do (and the flight deck crew who fly it back?) They obviously don’t spend a week in Boston, but surely this once a week aircraft substitute causes a lot of hassle for crew planning?

Pilot37

Can I help you

Pilots normally operate a return flight 24 hours later or if there is a change of aircraft the next rotation of that type, if there is a gap of a few days they may be positioned back to base.
Cabin crew just swap onto the different aircraft type and and spare crew left remain down route and join another crew.

Geordie405

Can someone from an engineering / operations background perhaps shed some light on what routine checks / maintenance occur for long haul aircraft between flights and how long this usually takes? Reason for asking is that I was flying back to Las Vegas on yesterday's BA275 and it was showing a 30 minute delay (i.e. 1645 departure instead of 1615 scheduled). There wasn't an aircraft swap, and the aircraft (G-CIVJ for anyone interested) had come in that morning from MIA so had been on the ground for about 10 hours.

We were eventually told that the reason for the delay was that the aircraft was late on stand following maintenance and needed to be cleaned and catered, and that this couldn't be done in the maintenance hangar. That is fair enough, but I am more curious as to whether this would have been planned maintenance or whether it would have been to fix a defect that became apparently on the previous flight?

When we did finally board we boarded by cabin and not by group number. According to the TAM this is SOP where the plane isn't fully ready to board? I have experienced it once before when the catering was being loaded and the aft doors were open. However, there seemed to be no obvious reason on yesterday's flight. BA at T3 seems to have real issues when it comes to the boarding process unfortunately.

On a separate issue, the onboard service was pretty poor. It was sluggish, disjointed and haphazard. We were - for a change - downstairs in J (last minute Avios booking) and, for example, I'd be proactively offered more wine my fiancée would be ignored. Similarly with clearing plates away, asking if I needed anything else, wanted more dessert etc. It really felt as if we weren't travelling together.

Geordie405

Another one for those who know more about this than I do, but when did BA start checking Green Cards immediately before boarding LH flights to the USA? In the past I would have a document check done at NCL before flying down to LHR where both my passport and Green Card would be checked, and that would be that.

On my last two flights out of T3 to Las Vegas I have been asked to physically produce my Green Card for the gate agent. I asked why as I'd already had a document check at NCL and was told, quite condescendingly, that it was because I may have lost it between there and here. What also frustrated me was that I was asked if I was travelling on an ESTA. Presumably BA knows what travel documents I am using when I fly to the USA as I have to specify that at the latest when I am checking in otherwise I wouldn't be able to get my boarding pass!

I appreciate that BA would be fined if I was to be transported to the USA without the correct documents but the check at the gate does smack a bit of the Nanny State in my view. Has it always been this way and I have just missed it / been lucky in the past or has something changed recently?

speedbuslhr

For maybe 2 and a half years possibly a bit longer? Checks at the gate were stepped up with dedicated North American Boarding teams for USA & Canada who are trained by the US & Canadian embassy’s. It is pretty standard for non ESTA passengers to have their visas or green cards checked at the gate. Every US flight I have worked on over the last 2 years we have checked visas/green cards.

speedbuslhr

From an operations perspective Long haul aircraft all have scheduled in Daily, Weekly, and monthly engineering checks between flights. On top of that they have scheduled maintenance in the hanger for more heavy work like engine changes. We cant keep a/c in T3 on long turn arounds so towing them adds to the maintenance time once they have towed somewhere else. Your delay yesterday was due to late release of non-scheduled maintenance which makes me think something was found from the inbound flight or during the daily checks which needed rectifying. Im afraid I was off yesterday so cannot elaborate anymore as to what happened. For the planned maintenance if it looks likely the aircraft won’t make the planned service then aircraft changes are made (where possible) to prevent any delays. Your flight also had a cleaning delay. Its likely that the decision the board by cabin was taken if the cleaners were still dressing the premium cabins or awaiting a delivery of pillows/bedding etc. Once they have started boarding like this it may be too difficult or confusing for the gate team to change it, especially with some of the gate layouts in T3.

Geordie405

speedbuslhr thank you very much for both replies - very much appreciated. I definitely understand the issues with changing back to Group Boarding once the boarding process has already started, and T3 definitely has some challenges with gate layouts. I just wish that the gate staff would be more forthcoming when there are delays, but that's me speaking as a frequent flyer and with perhaps more knowledge / awareness than most of the other passengers on the plane. The other thing that was frustrating on the day was to hear the cabin crew make the usual "In order to get you away on time" messages about stowing bags etc. We were already delayed so any hope of an on-time departure was mere wishful thinking. I know the message is standard and the crew member was probably reciting from the script or from memory but a little bit of situational awareness wouldn't go amiss.

bubbah

I thought it did 787/9 as well

Can I help you

In a delay situation the announce should change to “ To allow us to leave us as soon as possible”.

Stewie Mac

After the 'trying circumstances' on an outbound flight last week, the captain came back shortly before descent to apologise personally, and mentioned that he'd 'put in a note' that 'they'd try to get me a better seat on the return flight'. Shortly after a cabin crew member came back to note what the return flight was.

The return was rammed in all classes, so I stayed in my original 72G. I get that, c'est la vie, but I have two questions for the staffers:
- does this kind of 'personal/discretionary/space-available possible upgrade' have any possibility of carrying over onto another flight? [I really don't expect it to, but just wondering if those notes would ever make it out of a PNR]
- where would the 'note' actually be? I knew the flight was rammed before boarding, so really didn't expect anything in the way of an upgrade, but I did expect that at some point someone (CSD/SCCM/?) would have come back for a short chat, even if just to apologise for not being able to do anything. Were my expectations unrealistic, or did the 'note' never make it onto an iPad? [this was an MF A380 if that makes any difference]

Thanks

Can I help you

Flight crew can see the names of fellow flight crew rostered on each flight, I assume the Captain will send a message on what is affectionally know as the “Nigel Net”.

G-BUSI

There is a picture in the New Arrivals/Retirements thread of the flight deck of the soon to be retired G-CIVM. On the small plate that has the airline reg on it there are four letters underneath the reg BJ-GP. Can any of our staffers explain what these letters mean please?