slicktony

I’m sitting at BER, waiting for flight 987 back to LHR. I know it’s delayed by at least an hour because Google tells me so, but there is no information on the board and no one at the gate. I could have stayed in the lounge, but family members are nervous and so here I am.

It’s not the biggest thing in the scheme of things, but it’s going to be a busy flight and there are a few families here. I’m sure they’d have been better off in a cafe or in the lounge (which is on the other side of passport control).

Why can’t they just announce the delay earlier or am I missing something?

Krisz

This is down to the airport. BA has no influence over what the airport information screens are showing.

slicktony

I asked at the information desk - they told me it is the responsibility of the gate staff who are normally BA local staff. Is that not right?

I would ask at the gate but there is no one there.

Krisz

I don't think there is anymore any BA local staff in any airports outside of LHR. Maybe JFK... In BER probably some 3rd party supplier who has to dispatch other airlines too. So no surprise no one is at the gate. Did the lounge screen shows got to gate? Can't remember what exactly the BER screens showing. Also the lounge has its own passport control station so you could go when the screen shows boarding.
I'm not going to blame you but I can't see how BA would influence over what airport screens are showing.

slicktony

All fair points. The lounge boards said nothing (some flights had delays signalled, others which are clearly delayed didn’t) and just speaking for myself I knew what the situation was and could have stayed in the lounge at the risk of a family argument!

i hadn’t realised it would have been BER’s own staff that were responsible for signalling a delay so thank you for that - I learn something new on this board everyday!

It just strikes me that a bit of info would have avoided a lot of frustration.

sigma421

It’s not BER’s staff so much as a third-party handling agent that BA has employed to take care of their flights, as opposed to paying for their own staff. IMO this doesn’t absolve them of any responsibility but it does often lead to poorer service - particularly because the handling agents are generally on very thin margins and there is little/no leeway when flights don’t run to time since agents may well handle multiple flights for multiple airlines in the same shift.

IThink

It’s servisair. Same happened on Monday. At least the OP found the lounge at BER. I breezed through passport control and then realised i had 90 mins of no lounge as a result!

camdentown

IMHO this outsourcing from BA staff at the airport leads to no service at all - other than basic sit at the desk check-in and sit at the gate boarding.
Its a real downgrade from having local BA staff in the airport. I've come across it at multiple airports in the EU , including major centres for BA like Frankfurt and Faro.

lhrsfo

I fly UA and BA about equally. BA’s communications about anything are near non-existent. There’s no excuse for not informing passengers about issues in close to real time but BA rarely does. Airports may be slow in updating information (although they can’t do anything if BA doesn’t tell them) but even BA must have heard of texting, emailing and in-App messaging.

By contrast, when UA is delayed, there’s almost too much information: I always get an in-App communication and a text. This seems to refresh regularly. Also the App shows where the inbound flight is (useful when at an outstation). But I have noticed that the airport displays sometimes take 5-10 minutes to update.

fluffymitten

Thanks to this forum, I was able to advise my OH about the location of the lounge on his return from holiday and he avoided that very experience!

Schultzois

Same thing happened to me at LHR in July… departure time came and went with screens not even showing a gate assigned. Obviously got a bit nervous, so asked a few times in the GC Lounge (that’s the sauna upstairs for the majority here who probably don’t know it, since it’s not GF or CCR… I’ve only recently discovered it myself).

Finally was told at least the gate by a kind person at the ticketing counter in GC, and of course once I went there, hundreds of people waiting and no sign of boarding. When at one point someone near me asked about the delay, they were told it was “late arrival of aircraft.” Flightaware and Flightradar24 both showed the inbound aircraft on the ground for hours, so a more accurate description might have been “inability to tow aircraft to stand…”

I don’t know who it comes down to in these kinds of situations, and perhaps the problematic answer is it comes down to no one. But if I were the airline, or the airport, I’d probably not willingly disclose that “there’s no good reason for the delay, or not knowing the gate, since the plane is here, the crew is here, but we just can’t figure out how to get the plane on to a stand, and we don’t have an answer about the when or why of that.”