bbc. BA bashing

I’m assuming they have taken the easy option again.

Lket it snow. Let it snow and all you lot cabt go home!

Climbed imto my nice warm bed. Turned on the radio and have listened to attack after attack after attack on BA!

Thank god I no longer do my commute on a Friday.

Although somehow BMI always got me home and. In worse weather than today. BA really are soft southern ……wet blankets

Maybe because of this?? 😉

http://www.newcastleairport.com/arrivals-departures

Safe travels!

This is not BA bashing, this is legitimate and thoroughly deserved criticism of an organisation who cannot handle disruption.

I was not there last night, but 2 years ago experienced the handling which others have described experiencing lat night at T5. Being kept on an aircraft for 5 or 6 hours without food or drink, being provided with no information by ground staff, flight or cabin crew using BA.com and other sources for flight details and being advised of cancellation by friends and family in a different country.

Being blackmailed by BA by being told no bags, no assistance if you get off.

Once flight cancelled no staff, no assistance.

So, this is typical handling not exceptional and the criticism is justified.

Now, you can argue that people should not go to airports and I would agree to a point. For transfer passengers you have little choice. In my experience if your flight is operating you also do not have a choice as they will not offer refunds or changes. Even when you do decide to call it a day, and I did with two kids in tow, we were told that we were on our own, no help, no bags and they would enforce full tickets rules and regulations.

This is about BA protecting its bottom line and doing so with staff and management who have little operational savvy and absolutely no planning for major weather events. Why for example was the short haul programme not cancelled on Thursday?

This was a well forecasted event. It would then have stopped all transfers passengers getting to London and would have allowed all point to point short haul to make alternative arrangements. Given the load factors at this time of year they could then have begun again with a clean sheet today, instead of the days of mayhem ahead due to crew and displaced aircraft issues. It would also have allowed the long haul programme to operate normally.

So I have little sympathy for BA on this as this is yet another self inflicted wound. If you have never experienced BAs handling of mass disruption then you are very very lucky.

BA…… This is not the fault of LHR for once. The weather was forecaste, it is known the airport cannot cope with full operation and so airlines must take action to protect its operations and its passengers..

Simons1…….

This is die to the size of BA operation. Whenever the flow rate ie the rate at which aircraft can be landed, is reduced then the BA operation will be disproportionately affected. This is because their short haul link to the next flight often with just 35 minutes between flights. So any landing delays will impact on them very quickly.

This is is known and so should form part of the planning especially in disruption.

A rule of thumb would be not to fly on a home carrier as you are much less likely to be impacted by disruption if using a non home airline.

You can tell there is no management of control at BA as whilst there is bad press about their handling they are still advertising “tp fly to serve” on radio followed immediately by a news report of the chaos at LHR.

Yes of course I understand all that Binman but not a single cancellation amongst the dozens of airlines that use LHR, or at Gatwick.

The clear message I take from that is to give BA a wide berth. Not that I use them anyway unless there is no other choice.

Site administrator.

Your experience is exactly what I would expect on that flight at that time, even following disruption. Any point to point passenger in bound on long haul would wonder what the fuss was about. You would not see the hundreds sleeping on floors or the mishandled bags which would be or should be out of sight…….

As for those in transit again there should not be a problem unless their flight is cancelled and if it is then it will be days before they and their bags are reunited.

I think the BBC and commercial radio reporting I have heard this am is probably not critical enough. Lets not forget the queues outside t4 year after year after year, the need for tents, the annual snow and fog disruptions etc.

BAA were rightly pilloried for closing LHR for 3 days but at least they invested in equip,ent and manpower. It is not going to keep LHR running at full tilt but it can operate. BA have seemingly done nothing, they still use staff from other ground operations to man and de ice aircraft, there are clearly not enought de icing units and clearly not enought staff……no surprise given the M4 chaos for much of yesterday……..the point is it was all forecast yet BA insisted on running a large part of their short haul operation and the consequences for thousands yesterday and over the next few days will be awful.

And he worst thing is that no compensation is payable as BA will claim extraordinary circumstances and weather when all along it was incompetence and mis management.