KARFA

Well let me add my own (not insignificant) data points.

Last year was poor. Punctuality was awful and BA clearly had issues trying to get flights away on time. So far this year it has been significantly improved. Now, you may reasonably say that’s not a low bar to meet, and you would be right. But equally it is still an improvement. More or less from the start of this year until now I can count on one hand the number of short haul flights with a delay more than say 30 minutes where this is not due to weather restrictions. I have have quite a few flights boarded well before departure time, and some even pushing back early. So, at the moment I am encouraged by what I see, there has clearly been a change so far this year when compared to 2023.

Dave Noble

At a customer service level, what would you really expect BA to do if you contact it about your flights? where there is a significant delay, it provides compensation under UK261 on delayed trips

corporate-wage-slave

My experience was similar to KARFA, and though I tried (and try) not travel on a Sunday, Sundays in 2023 were particularly bad. This year I've so far not had one significant delay, and just a few 30 minute delays. My flights to USA have been particularly good with timekeeping. In particular I'm not getting the issues at arrival at T5 where ground handling has simply not turned up for 15-30 minutes, which has a particular feature of 2023. Looking at the overall figures for LHR on good weather days, BA is generally able to do 85% timekeeping (no more than plus 15 minutes) for both arrivals and departures. Today is 91% for departures, 83% for arrivals, yesterday was much worse due to thunderstorms in the afternoon. The one continuing poor KPI - that won't affect either me or KARFA - is baggage retrieval, due to staff shortages and despite repeated recruitment initiatives. This rarely gets to 50% (20 minute return) and every day at least some flights have baggage return over an hour.

Finland Station

Acknowledge the impact of cumulative delay.

There is already a customer service algorithm that identifies those pax who have experienced repeated delays (not of an order that trigger UK/EU261). And that makes sense. If a particular (very unlucky) customer has had five consecutive flights with very substantial delays (but not quite long enough to qualify for UK/EU261 compo), there is an obvious service recovery issue to be considered.

davidcamp6

"there is an obvious service recovery issue to be considered". No there isn't. If I calculated the same thing with HMCTS the figures would be mind-blowing. Its called "life".

bisonrav

Most of my flights have been to Sofia this year on BA (19 total BA out of 49 flights this year so far), and we had everything from coming in very early to significant outbound delays often pulled in quite a bit on the return.

What we didn't have was significant delays waiting for gate guidance, and the other intensely irritating elements that happened a lot last year and really pushed me off BA in the second half of the year. I feel subjectively there is an improvement, but I get into more significant BA flying next week. I have mostly found that the cabin crew are really playing blinders.

The LCC still do reliability better, but that's largely because they can line people up to board very early and are not worrying about customer experience.

Pilot37

Using my own experiences, they have improved significantly over the last few months - but sadly it all went peared shaped this week.
My LHR - DUB flight on Thursday was over an hour delayed and had no food or drink loaded and the O/H’s same routing yesterday had a cancellation and an hour delay on the rebooked flight. Hopefully it was just a bad week and not a sign of things to come over the summer!

Pilot37

LondonAussie

You've taught me some new British slang today, and the meaning was not at all what I guessed before looking it up.

BA850

Like others, I�ve had a good run so far with BA this year. My first and only delay was imposed by ATC yesterday due to weather at Heathrow (a band of hail, apparently, so I�m quite happy that we sat on the ground at our origin being furnished with snacks before takeoff instead of flying anywhere near that!).

DaveS

I'll agree that there has been a significant improvement since the start of winter for me. Both for BA and TK I cannot think of a significant delay on that time. Last year until the autumn was a different matter with delays and delayed baggage at LHR and LGW.

JapesUK

2024 has been pretty bad for me, almost every flight delayed on departure although a lot caught up or came close by the time we arrived, the joys of SH travel. Still fully two thirds were late by an average of twenty minutes.

bhbloke

Can confirm the band of hail, was on my motorbike en route to Wembley yesterday afternoon for the match as I got pelted for about 5 minutes!

Howard Long

This has long been a feature of Heathrow and sometimes even at the likes of JFK.

Is getting someone to operate the airbridge, and/or clear the apron, down to BA or HAL?

The price of having an aircraft delayed because there wasn't an airbridge operator is unforgiveable on even the most basic of cost/benefit analyses. Or was this another pandemic hangover, struggling to get enough people through the security process?

skipness1E

Both down to BA, as all ground equipment and handling at T5 is once more with them.

Howard Long

T3 too? That always seems to struggle, including before the pandemic.