[dutchyankee]

Indeed, Wow! However, same can happen on Lufthansa.com which can be an absolute nightmare more frequently than not, as can the Swiss system. I would venture to say, plenty of airlines have their share of IT issues. It just seems a certain person, no names mind, isn’t content with one thread beating a dead horse, so starts a second. Let’s look out for the hat-trick! 🙂

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

All airlines seem to have problems from time to time – it will happen (as we occasionally do). But the frequency of issues at BA at the moment is concerning. No doubt if I was in another country I may notice problems on other carriers more often. But so far none others that I use frequently are of any concern or cause the number of customer problems that BA does at the moment.

[FDOS_UK]

dutchyankee – 13/04/2016 12:59 BST

Two different issues, two threads. One now dead, as it’s fixed. The other should have been dead, weeks ago.

Now, for the avoidance of doubt, are you saying that Lufthansa Group has experienced the same problems that Tim listed in his post?

[FDOS_UK]

Tim

The ‘Panama papers’ leak seems to have come from shoddy IT maintenance work, according to the Register – food for thought

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/07/panama_papers_unpatched_wordpress_drupal/

[dutchyankee]

Yes, indeed, I have encountered numerous problems on the LH webpage. All to do with choosing seats. Often, you start the process which takes you to another page where there is a stylised airplane taking off to show the site is thinking, and then after at least 5 minutes maybe more, the page goes to error, please come back later. If you try to book seats on non LH flights although booked on LH webpage you are not able to even on LH group carriers so similar to Tim’s AA/BA issue, which at least redirects, LH doesn’t even do that, you have to go to the operating carriers page. With Swiss, the main problem I have is when you get to the Payment page, and more times than I care to remember, the process breaks down and you have to start all over again, which is obviously annoying. I also once had a situation where I booked a rather long itinerary on LH site but including flights with OS and LX, and while I could go to the LX site to block seats with booking reference as on my LH booking, for OS I need a different booking reference which I then had to research on the original booking, so an added complication.

I by no means am suggesting the problems you all are facing on BA are not true, but it seems the view is that it is only BA that has these issues, which simply isn’t true.

As I am based in Belgium/Netherlands and often in Eastern Europe, I have moved my flying more to *A and in particular LH Group, so perhaps I am more likely to encounter problems with them than with BA on my last few flights with them. And to further avoid confusion, I am not a BA apologist. I used to swear by BA, and have been Gold since 1994, although come December of this year, I will lose my Gold and I guess become Silver and then Bronze, as I have lost patience with BA’s on board product as others are now leaps and bounds ahead of them. BA still has its charm, in particular as I love almost all things British, but for my money, I go where there is a better on board product.

[FDOS_UK]

dutchyankee – 13/04/2016 13:44 BST

I haven’t been flying * much, recently, so haven’t had your experiences and cannot post about them – sounds poor, though.

The two airlines I do most of my flying with (Emirates and easyJet) have not caused me any problems and they seem to work exactly as intended, all of the time (apart from one glitch in DXB last year, when online check in fell over for an hour – in fairness EK put up a notice explaining and giving an accurate ETA for resumption, plus a number to call if anyone needed to.)

The other airline I’ve (relunctantly) used this year, Ryanair, also has a website that works. Edited in the light of Tim’s subsequent post: it worked when I used it, which was once to book the flights and twice for check-in.

Thus the focus of my posts, since BA is the only one that causes me regular problems.

[TimFitzgeraldTC]

Just for some balance to those that would like it but other travel websites that have experienced “serious” issues in recent weeks:

Ryanair (as mentioned by colleagues) with website on various web platforms not working thus requiring use of other platforms – hindering purchase / online check ins

Canadian ETA website – been such a mess that have unofficially delayed requirement for ETA until 30th September

Indian ETA website. Similar to above with card payments not being accepted on many platforms unless using for example a Visa Debit Card on Chrome (using Mastercard on IE for example would fail – can’t rememeber exact way it had to be done – but a nightmare for many), Has meant some clients giving up and getting emergency appointments at Indian Embassy.

US ESTA site mistakenly cancelling valid ESTAs in belief passports were not E-Passports when they were – requiring people to phone up to get ESTA re-instated (once number was discovered) – though some people panicked and got new passports!

So whilst BA are not having a great time, recently Ryanair have had issues (though appear to be sorted) and some ETA websites not working correctly.

Conclusion – it would appear that when sites don’t work properly – it can have quite serious issues for those it affects.

[ba747fan1]

TimF – thanks for your balanced post. I do get infuriated on my laptop that so often BA website says it is not responding as it is a pain. However, they have vastly improved their app and allows you to search reward flights etc now and I find quite user friendly and reliable. Just at times, a laptop is preferable to use.

[MrMichael]

The one thing that amazes me is that any business can have an IT glitch and be unable to “rollback” to a previous version of their software that does work. To me it is just ridiculous that supposed improvements to a website result in a loss in functionality and they press on regardless. In the company I work for our IT bods would be looking down the barrel of a P45 pretty quickly. IT systems are either working, or offline, to my knowledge they never give up part of the ghost unless someone has been tinkering, and that is when rollback is critical.

Meanwhile I have advised MrsM to stop watching Eastenders and instead read the BA IT Issue threads on this forum.

[AnthonyDunn]

@ MrMichael – 13/04/2016 15:16 BST

What I find (literally) incredible is, having previously worked in a software house that provided inter alia some serious/heavy duty forex and trade settlement and reconciliation software for fund managers across the world’s major financial centres, we would have an entirely separate test environment on which we would trial any amends or upgrades to our software before releasing it into the respective client’s production environment.

Where I was based (Schroders Asset Management) there certainly was the odd glitch in the production environment owing to the fact of running several different generations of legacy software together – no amount of middleware could cope with that bolted-together bundle of odds and ends. But when we wrote a (what was then a cutting edge 64-bit system… Phew!) completely new iteration incorporating shed loads of additional functionality that replaced lots of the old junk, we had an entire dedicated test environment. We finally ran a complete trial day with users putting trades all the way through the system and then looked to see whether it worked as intended – and what, if anything, fell over. We were extremely thorough (and this was reflected in the cost) but if you have mission critical IT systems that, if they don’t work properly, can bring the business to a grinding halt, you make damned sure that things work before they are put into the live production environment.

I am increasingly getting the impression that BA’s approach to IT is to address glitches after the event rather than proactively. And if most of their IT has now been outsourced to the Indian sub-continent – where everything appears to work strictly to a script – then we can expect things progressively to deteriorate. Why? Because in such a culture, authority flows down and information flows up so it takes a while for the two to coalesce somewhere in the middle. By way of example, consider the utterly lamentable (but probably dirt cheap) British Telecom call-centre operations in India where you can never find anyone with the authority to make a decision when this veers off-script or pushes at the edges of their minimal delegated authority.

Eventually IAG’s senior management might get to realise that you get what you pay for and the damage they’ve self-inflicted in the pursuit of everything ever cheaper. Dirt cheap does not mean either efficient or capable. But just how many customers will they have to lose before the penny drops? Remember the adage about peanuts and monkeys?

[EU_Flyer]

I tried to check in last night for a BA flight.

I wanted 1A.

The website said 57B.

I wanted First Class

The ticket said Economy.

Damn you BA IT, damn you.

[FDOS_UK]

More like…..

I booked seat 28B and paid £50 for it.

I went to check in last night and found I was in 42B

I waited for 10 mins on the phone

Then I was informed it was ‘for operational reasons’

No-one even bothered to send me an email when my seat was changed

Now I have to fill in a form, to see if they will refund my £50

That’s the reality

[ba747fan1]

FDOS – npt sure what this is achieving. More anti – BA!

At least Krug may have been the opposite as supported but at least useful advice was given rather than constant bashing!

[FDOS_UK]

“FDOS – npt sure what this is achieving. More anti – BA!”

Nope, that’s exactly what happened to a collegue of mine, last week. File it under self inflicted injury, she won’t be in a hurry to fly BA again.

Sorry you don’t like it, but I suppose gold members like you never experience it.

Have a nice evening.

PS: we’ve been asked by BT not to comment on Krug/Sergeant Major, as it/s/he is no longer registered (banned by BT) and thus unable to respond. I will respect that request.

[dutchyankee]

FDOS_UK, is this the same friend/colleague from the other thread you used regarding something that happened to her a year ago? I’m just curious as you tend to always have ‘handy’ stories you try to use as fact and therefore think it gives you more credence. BA isn’t perfect, but no airline is and yet it seems you have an endless supply of stories/supposed facts of things we are supposed to believe are true, and when anyone questions them or tries to bring some levity you take offense. It gets old, and yes I know, if I don’t like it I should just not read etc., but this is a forum and all of us can read and comment on whatever we wish. Rudeness, I agree , is unnecessary nor welcome.

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