Mutu

It is worth noting that many key third parties are also struggling which adds to the customer facing airline bearing the brunt of criticism.

Yesterday my 16:20 flight from NCL to LHR was boarded and ready for push back before the flight crew were advised due to ATC staff shortages our slot would be for a 20:50 departure.

Happily the crew persisted with the "we are ready to go" and slowly earlier slot times were achieved (as they do, perhaps the FO should have kept us less informed about the extent of the possible delay!). We eventually landed at LHR at 19:11.

Lots of missed connections and more chaos for the airline despite this not being of their making.

GTR56

My LHR-AMS flight tomorrow has just been cancelled. I fully expected this as yesterday's and todays flight at that time were also cancelled short notice. Rebooking wasn't simple as many of the alternative flights were full. Now going from LCY nearly 4 hours later.

salut0

What about simultaneous, competing promotions at cross purposes?

HAL want you to take as little hand baggage as you can so you can buy as much duty free and other stuff as possible.

BA want to reduce the load on their baggage handlers so they’d prefer you take only hand baggage and check nothing.

So what if as well as BA offering bonus Avios for not checking bags, HAL could offer particularly copious Heathrow Rewards for buying large quantities of duty free?

dobba

Good luck. I had my LHR-Lux flight canceled this morning and thought I'd be OK from lcy this afternoon but that is now cancelled too.

I'm now sat here waiting for a Luxair flight instead (at my expense for now but will be chasing up with BA)

RGS5526

How much of the ground handling and baggage delay is caused by HMG following a Walsh-Cruz approach to staffing the civil service, so that the part responsible for carrying out the security checks needed for cannot cope with current demand, leading to delays in deploying sufficient baggage handlers, for example, to meet current demand.

corporate-wage-slave

We may need to think of more radical solutions.

I bought a book from Amazon a few weeks ago. Despite being an English language book, produced by a major UK publisher for the UK market, not particularly obscure, Amazon nevertheless stocked it in their warehouse in Madrid. I ordered it on Monday, Tuesday it was in East Midlands Airport (off a cargo flight) , Wednesday it was in my particularly obscure corner of England. Maybe BA could look at linking Airportr with cargo flights. Collect your bag on day1, or even drop it off at designated locations, it will be in your hotel in MAD / NYC / FRA / BeNeLux when you arrive on day 3. Now there will be what-ifs, but air cargo sector was not hit by COVID-19 as much as the rest of the aviation industry so is currently better placed than passenger services.

Middleofthebus

After arriving (without delays) back yesterday evening on the flight from Rome, which landed around 9.45pm, I received both an email and a text message at around 1am this morning to let me know that they could not deliver my baggage, including the line "We know we’ve let you down, but we wanted to let you know as soon as possible so that you don’t wait in the baggage hall. "

Two issues with this: first, by this point I would have been stood in the baggage hall for 3 hours and second, I didn't have any hold baggage.

Definitely some investment needed....

ratechaser

With this and all other similar threads in mind, I wonder if my decision to go with U2 out of LTN next week (rather than BA out of LHR) will end up being a smart move or not... frankly it's all guesswork right now

I won't appreciate having given up my lounge privileges if it's equally bad on the other side of the fence...

Jimmie76

Some of us like the Ying Yang seats thank you very much. The slower they are replaced the better in my case.

bse118

yep. Door time.

I found myself in the odd position of hoping for a slight further delay...

13901

There were some tentative attempts at getting Amazon involved in baggage logistics, especially with Amazon's retail transport arm selling extra capacity, back pre-Covid. It ended in nothing because of the need to scan bags and accessing non-Amazon warehouses and installations. Doesn't mean that it can't be done, though, and it'd be super good in shaking up a bit the baggage courier industry (which is largely made of non very reputable companies).

I've just applied for a basic criminal record check through DBS (used to be Disclosure Scotland, now it seems to be done this side of Hadrian's Wall). From sending the request to receipt of the paperwork it was about one week in total which is quite fast.

The problem is the pass issue unit over at HAL. That'll be a whole different matter... Right now I can see no appointments available this side of November, by which time I'll need a new record check!

KARFA

Is there a particular reason HAL isn’t trying to resource the pass unit better? All airlines and other airside companies must be desperate to get that sorted and must be hammering HAL to sort it as a matter of urgency.

Swanhunter

From stalking Flightradar to help a family member, my impression is that U2 at LTN are doing fairly well. LGW has been their disaster zone.

HarryHolden68

A much delayed departure to SEA followed by an occupied runway forced Go-Around on arrival took my delay over 4 hours once.
Never been so happy to hear those Rolls Royce engines spool up at 500 feet!

benmitchell

Just like BA yesterday