jib71

My recent experiences with arrival at LCY have been underwhelming. Yesterday I found the barkers dealing with the immigration queue to be particularly unhelpful.

I flew GRX to LCY with Mrs. Jib (non-EU passport holder). Arrived at 7:15pm. Entered the airport building at the entrance nearest to the immigration desks. AFAIK, ours was the only flight in the immigration area at that time, but the proximity of the entrance meant that the queue soon backed up all the way to the door so some people were stuck outside in the cold ... entirely foreseeable.

LCY's solution? A guy with a high-visibility jacket came into the immigration hall and shouted at people to "move up the corridor". Of course, the people that he was shouting at didn't understand, so he shouted exactly the same thing several times. Perhaps there should be some tensa barriers to guide people up the corridor. Or a sign. Or another entrance. Or ... any one of a dozen solutions that would be better than his ineffectual barking.

When Mrs jib and I reached the front of the queue we met another barker who was doing a poor job of managing the queue by sending people up to each counter only once the counter was empty (i.e. doing nothing to reduce the latency). When the people in front of us reached the front of the queue, she found that they were rummaging around in a bag for a passport. Rather than moving them to the side politely, she proceeded to give them a telling off about holding up the queue and not being ready - It reminded me of the teacher in The Wall ("How can you have any pudding, if you don't eat your meat?") Checking that people's documents are ready would be best done upstream, IMHO.

So now it's our turn ...

On seeing that Mrs. Jib had a non-EU passport, she barked "You're in the wrong queue. You have to join that queue." Eventually we convinced her that we were together and my passport permitted us to be where we were ... but rather than moving on she chastised us: "You have to tell me. I can't guess that." I bit my tongue rather than engaging her in a debate about whether I could have guessed that she would assume that we were in the wrong queue and attempt to move us... She moved on to the next people in line and said something to them (I forget what she said but I remember thinking that it was unnecessarily confrontational) and then she addressed the entire queue to explain that she was just making sure the queue moved quickly and we shouldn't complain, as we'd all be complaining if the queue didn't move. (And I have had "We don't need no education" going around in my head ever since...)


What a failure. LCY has gone from one of my favourite arrival experiences to a lousy one where people bark at me without improving the issues that they're ostensibly alleviating.

stifle

I actively ignore the queue barker at LCY and try my best to have gone up to the desk before she can direct me there by watching which one will become free quickest.

However, it's not the airport's fault if people are too idiotic to have their passport out when they get to the front of the queue.

Aviatrix

The behaviour of both these staff members was clearly unacceptable... and seeing two instances of unacceptable behaviour within minutes of each other it's easy to come to the conclusion that "this is an unfriendly airport". But they are only two people, out of a staff that probably numbers several hundred.

I've found LCY management to be pretty responsive to complaints about their staff. How about contacting LCY customer service with your complaint? I'm sure they'd take it seriously, and if their intervention results in those barkers being re-educated then you would have done yourself and all of us a big favour.

jib71

I think airports can anticipate this "behavior". At other airports I have seen a staff member walking along the queue and ensuring that people have their documents in order before they get close to the front. Well designed signage can help too. (The only sign that I noticed was the one to tell people not to abuse the staff).

I like your approach of ignoring the barker ... but this one made it her business to get in our way. Exasperating.

Yes. I'll send an email to LCY (without the Pink Floyd references) ... I saw a presentation about LCY's technology investments recently -- LCY has installed some very impressive technology to monitor flows of passengers and coordinate responses to mitigate bottlenecks. (Technology from one of the Japanese tech. vendors IIRC). All lovely, but even the best technology solutions in the world won't make up for badly trained people on the front line.

bibbju

I don't think the staff behaviour was particularly outrageous. LCY is pretty much a business airport still so in general I'd expect LCY passengers to be a lot more switched on than "regular" passengers.

Aviatrix

LCY is now an airport like any other - full of pensioners, backpackers and screaming kids. (Well, it was certainly full of screaming kids when I was there one Bank Holiday week-end...)

And the behaviour that was described in the first post is unacceptable (IMHO) regardless of who the passengers are. You don't shout at your customers.

stifle

Depends on when you go, I think. Last time I was there was a Friday morning and there must have been five buggies processed during the time I was waiting before and sorting my stuff out after security.

stut

Yes, if you go at prime connecting-flight time, you get a good mix of passengers.

Either way, there is never an excuse for rudeness from airport employees. That's the kind of thing you expect at LHR, not LCY

I have noticed, on recent trips through LCY, that the airlines have had a number of much more junior customer-facing ground staff. They're really keen, and that's great, but many of them are lacking experience, particularly in "soft skills", and particularly in conflict management.

stifle

Yes, and I would also note the security screening staff were extremely polite to all-comers irrespective of stupidity and a very high metal detector beep rate. Well turned-out too, with the male searcher wearing a suit, jacket and tie and the female searcher in a suit with heels, completely unlike the pseudo-police outfits at some other airports.

WHBM

One of the difficulties LCY labours under is that, due to UK planning laws, they have been subjected to a whole string of constraints on employment by their local authority. Newham, which has stuck on them a vast number of Politically Correct issues, of the sort that the councillors think important. Don't go along with these and you don't get your planning permissions for terminal extensions, new facilities, yadda yadda yadda. A key one is that no less than 70% of the employees have to come from the "local area", and 35% from Newham itself. For those who don't know how small the various London boroughs are, there are several which are visible from the LCY ramp (eg Croydon, The City, etc) which are outside this definition.

See paras 7.2.4/7.2.5 in this report which LCY have to produce annually.

http://www.londoncityairport.com/con...ort%202012.pdf

It's a real problem for LCY management in recruiting adequate staff, in particular the Newham 35%, for a borough which has very little "middle income" housing. Ever a problem for the airport when they do recruit adequate people from this area is they do well - and move out to the outer suburbs, of course, diluting the percentages again. Therefore the airport has to take significant numbers of what other companies would require as "marginal" employees, who then know once hired that they are relatively bullet-proof.

If there was national control of airport planning consent such nonsenses would doubtless be done away with.

stifle

That's quite the eye-opener. I wonder whether LCY considered taking a judicial review against those conditions which appear to be completely politically motivated and unrelated to the proper planning and sustainable development of the local area.

jib71

+1
Perhaps LCY should build a "company dorm" in Newham.

mandolino

I'm non-EU and can't recall any unusual rudeness on my few entries into LCY. No ruder than LHR or LGW anyway. Far more rude than ABZ, but hey, it's London.

teflon

I'll admit that you can see landmarks from other London boroughs from the ground at LCY, but is Croydon really one of them?

WHBM

Yes you can see the TV transmitter, and accompanying hilltop, at Crystal Palace.