navylad

After a couple of weeks trying to get TCP sorted for an upcoming flight, I’ve eventually been told there isn’t a TCP team at the moment and nobody is working the TCP queue as they are “furloughed”, (yes my understanding was they had all been recalled too- but in any case there is nobody completing TCPs at present it seams.

I had a number of calls in each time I was told that they would send it again down to seating and only today, speaking to a supervisor, the reason for inactivity has become clear. The supervisor can override and put people in seats, and the lines will have been entered into the booking, but it won’t work to be able to move people on the app/website.

Confus

There is no ‘TCP’ team as such, it’s just an entry in the PNRs. However, there IS a ‘seating control unit’, who are the people that give the Gold seating benefits that can be added following the entry of a TCP keyword. Given the relative lack of flights at the moment, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if they were furloughed, particularly if there’s no other activity they are trained for (e.g. refunds). There are thousands of BA employees still furloughed, I don’t know where you got the idea that they’re all back at work.

megaloman

As @Confus said, there's no TCP team as such, it's just a link between PNRs and can be done by any agent. Seat selection has to be requested with the back office (who may be furloughed). Side note, I was successful in getting the seat assigned for my friend recently (2-3 weeks ago).

You were never able to change their seats on-line via app/website, all seats change requests would need to go through the back-office. Changing seats on-line would only work if you were on the same booking with non-status pax.

navylad

I didn’t say there was a TCP team, I said I was today told the TCP team we’re not in. The words of the call handler and their supervisor not mine and quite frankly I care very little if there is a specialist team or just members of a more general team who can action the requirements in the bookings.

Respectfully though, i think you both miss the point of sharing the information, not to inform people about the intricate workings of how the office works but to help others who may also be trying to get seating sorted for a complete party and being told it is being sent down to seating. Having been told this 5 times, there is a systemic failure and it is useful for anyone trying so that they don’t get robbed off.

I’ll take your word for it if your saying all of the seating team are furloughed, that doesn’t make great sense to me unless proper systems are in place to replicate the work either oka. Temporary or permanent basis. .

NWIFlyer

I believe the point here is that there really is no work, at least not beyond something that would keep one person occupied for more than 10 minutes a week.

If we take c-w-s’s experience as illustrative, we know from what he’s said elsewhere that on one day recently he was the only Gold status passenger travelling on BA from LHR.

Given an absolutely tiny percentage of bookings need to use the TCP seating benefit, it’s very likely anyone dealing with such requests would have had something to do once every few months. It’s probably not much improved now, so I’m not entirely surprised BA has simply chosen not to provide this service in the short term. In the ‘new normal’, the bigger question has to be whether they’ll ever bring it back.

navylad

indeed hence the second part of what you have quoted, I’ve not problem them furloughing those who can achieve this is there are proper systems in place, that are well communicated and understood by all customer facing staff of work-arounds, or just diversifying someone’s job (either someone who was previously auctioning these request to do other tasks or someone else taught how to undertake these tasks).

After all, it is a published benefit,

That having been said, there clearly is a work around, which a supervisor managed to complete today, just 5 call handlers, and another supervisor, were apparently unaware that when they were emailing for action no-one was auctioning and another process needed to happen.

Pax really shouldn’t have to chase such actions multiple times. Still thankfully at least those who have seen the thread will be forwarded (indeed I was TCPing another flight this evening and once again the call handlers didn’t know but I was politely able to advise them how to do their job).

A P Yu

There are many advertised benefits not being provided at the moment.
im grateful they focussed on higher priority services personally.
given their focus in efficiency savings for the future this feels like one which could be enhanced away with little impact.
BA would probably prefer their staff to focus on re-bookings to keep the call waiting times down.

(and there’s no polite way to tell people how to do their job)

corporate-wage-slave

The other factor is that with a few exceptions, passenger loads are such that I doubt it would difficult for people on different bookings to find seats proximate to each other. Though I've been on some busy flights recently (including the one to Pristina incidentally) none of them have been completely blocked out seating wise.

Kgmm77

I’m not sure it’s reasonable to say you’ve no problem with furlough whilst expecting exactly the same service to be delivered.

sxc

Can someone explain what is TCP?

corporate-wage-slave

It allows Golds to choose someone to sit next to them on a separate booking but in the same cabin. With the advent of Theoretical Seating it is sometimes impossible to do this at OLCI if the person doesn't have status. There are two bits, the TCP aspect is just linking the booking and doesn't do much, but the Gold benefit is the second step, going to the Seating team and getting a pair (or more) of seats allocated for two bookings.

"To Complete Party" -- what does it get you?

navylad

I’m not expecting the ‘exactly the same service’ to be delivered, I am expecting that where there is a change in process it is communicated to and understood by customer facing personnel.

Kgmm77

Well, I’m only going on what you said above. We clearly have a different view of the word replicate.

I agree the communications are not ideal (garbled messages and staff putting their own “spin” with BA happens in business as usual times as well).

You are right that it is a published benefit but given the manual nature of the task as outlined above, as well the focus on rationalisation and cost reduction, you’d have to think the easy answer here is to remove the benefit it can’t be easily automated.

The Geek

I asked for a TCP / seat assignment in May which took about a month before it showed on the booking.

At the moment I've been waiting a couple of weeks for them to come back to me on a comfort seat price.

On the flipside, we were quoted up to 28 days for refunds by an agent a couple of weeks back, yet the money came back within 24 hours for 4 of the 5 bookings.