xenole

Same here.
Don't want to be that person who holds up 180 people by spending forever sorting out their bits and bobs in row 1.
Same with security. Belt off ready, toiletries in hand etc.

At the end of the day, it's all about hitting targets, KPIs, and passing the buck.
If the desk agents board everyone in 15 mins, then the onus to get things done on time passes onto say the ramp / dispatcher / ground crews and so on.
Makes your on time performance figures look good especially if it's a third party such as Menzies working on behalf of BA.

Dover2Golf

A mate of mine observed recently that boarding any aircraft in any class is simply a business of moving from one queue to another while growing increasingly irritated about it.

BAeuro

Flying CE from Valencia this summer and had an awfully long wait on the jetbridge, maybe 20-30 minutes. It was also 39°c that day and there was no AC, so pax were getting frustrated and very hot!

I haven’t experienced this on any of my other flights this year though.

KeaneJohn

Was travelling from Madrid with someone needing assistance which was requested. Asked to preboard was told no as group 1. Ended up being the first to board when the called boarding only to be held at aircrsft door for 10 minutes. Feedback to BA who shrugged it off.

catandmouse

I've often wondered what Fire Officers would say about the practice. I assume no-one has ever told them and that they don't fly?

IAMORGAN

All it achieves ultimately is ‘great - we’ve now achieved 35 minute turnarounds with 98% punctuality so I’m setting you a stretch objective of 30 minute turnarounds’. It’s a self-fulfilling race to the bottom and it needs someone senior to say ‘is this the right way to treat customers?’ ‘How does this affect our brand?’ ‘What do customers think?’

As a mainly now leisure traveller in club, this change was the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of loyalty - I will now look at other non-BA options too such as *A. Whether sufficient numbers are doing it, I don’t know, but it is not how an airline such as BA should do things in my view.

Ultimately though it’s a numbers game, isn’t it?

IAMORGAN

As with much else, it will take something major with fatalities to cause anyone to pay serious attention.

HIDDY

Like many 'race to the bottom' complaints one reads about you have the right answer. Rather than continually suffering just buy another company's product instead. @:-)

anniegray

Sounds like ABZ. Standing in the corridor or out in the rain is normal. I was soaked before I boarded the other day

13901

This is a very annoying example of BA’s current schizophrenia. Customers value being punctual, surveys say. Rotational delays hurt BA, data say. Rotational delays have a tendency to creep up during the day, so much so that a handful of minutes on the first flight becomes an hour for the last.

All this is true.

The result is an inordinate focus on departure punctuality. Gate closed at minus whatever, doors closed at -5 and woe betide the unfortunate sod who gets given the delay. The result is that the gate just cares about shoving people in, cleaning cares only about getting off the plane, catering about shoving everything in the galleys, the dispatcher cares only about closing the doors on time and crews are left holding everyone’s babies (not literally).
And here’s when it gets batsh*t crazy. The planes have been densified, but the times have remained the same. It ends up that a 321neo has more passengers than a 789 but the SOPs give it less time to board, despite having one less door and one less aisle, and a hell of a lot less space in the overhead bins, which are bound to be rammed because no one has had the courage to tackle the hand baggage situation, no one is paying a bit extra for the larger A350-style bins like Delta did or no one is trying to rein in the (mis)use of HBO fares. People run around like headless chicken, shoving passengers in, pi**ing everyone off in the process, only then to spend 30 minutes in a stack over Bromley-by-Bow or Woking because there’s congestion on the airfield.

BTW all this has been highlighted to senior management (COO) before the summer started.

Nickl

As someone who regularly flies from Valencia, I think BA are facing a significant risk with what is now the usual practice of holding passengers in the jetbridge for what is typically 10 minutes plus. The first few in the queue get far enough down to be in the shade but from about the tenth person onwards the queue is effectively in a glass greenhouse which, and most obviously in the summer, does get very hot to the point of people regularly complaining of feeling faint and/or ill. There is air conditioning further down the bridge towards the aircraft but it doesn’t reach far back and anyway doesn’t always work.

HighwayToHEL

At EDI not all gates have airbridges so we sometimes wait at the bottom of the steps at tarmac level, door open, watching the plane whilst getting blasted in horizontal rain. It's all part of the journey experience

redpalmetto

And they can't even provide covered steps from Dalcross handling at Gate 5 - the BA gate - unlike for KLM and AF. Presume that is yet another cost saving.

HarryHolden68

Standing on the jet bridge is an inconvenience. Stand in the queue at the gate or stand in the queue on the jet bridge? Temperature and humidity excepted, it's all the same.

What I really want BA to sort out is having to stand in the queue with everyone else on a jet bridge holding your First ticket to seat 1A on a long haul. I choose not to arrive at the gate at the start of boarding to maximise lounge time or end of boarding - I am too risk averse. I can see a second leg to the jet bridge, parked next to door 1L unconnected. Why have that second leg to the jet bridge not to use on most occasions? This is far from a Premium experience and a simple fix - but then labour costs money so the bean counters would not agree to that.

13901

Besides money (you have one dispatcher, that dispatcher at LHR has literally minutes to drive the jetties or else he’s already late) it’s a question of infrastructure. There are gates (one of the 2 380 capable at ORD T3, and some in T3 LHR when using a 747) where the jetty can’t go at 1L because of tolerance limits.

Plus there’s the lovely 787. The outer concertina flap, on door 1L, sits some 20-30 cm from one of the artificial horizon probes. I know dispatchers that flatly refuse to go anywhere door 1 because of that.