[Anonymous]

[SimonS1]

I can see on basource that so far this month planes have gone tech in Bermuda, Milan, Frankfurt, London, Boston, Chennai, Amman, New York, Dallas, Riyadh, Tunis and Miami.

Quite a number of cancellations and diversions.

Is this normal? I would be seriously irked if I had paid CW fares to Jeddah and found myself on a Europe-configured 767……

http://www.thebasource.com/2013/06/

[Flyingsoldier1993]

Yes, that is indeed quite normal for an airline of that size. And I can assure you similar things are happening on most other carriers all over the world every day.

[SimonS1]

Easyjet and EK have pretty much the same size fleet but it seems nowhere near the same level of tech issues. Maybe they are just lucky.

http://www.theeksource.com/

http://www.theezysource.com/

[Bucksnet]

They have newer fleets!

[rferguson]

Hey SimonSi

There has been an increase in technical issues with the 747 and 767 fleet lately. Given the age of some of the aircraft it’s no surprise really.

Although ‘tech’ aircraft are nothing new, because of delays to the new deliveries and an increase in the flying schedule as planned for this summer BA has bitten off a bit more than it can chew. BA always keeps aircraft and crews on standby to cover technical issues. But I believe that as some of the older 767’s and 747’s are still in the fleet that should have been retired they have now had to go into the hanger for more intense maitenence checks which means that some of the ‘standby’ aircraft are having to replace these aircraft – leaving BA very thin on the ground for on-the-day tech issues. The RUH gets canx with such regularity it could almost be designated a ‘part-time’ flight.

[millionsofmiles]

LH, for example, does also have in some parts an ageing fleet, like BA, they dont even come close to the many tech canx of BAs quantity.
IMHO it is a question of lax maintenance and repair, waiting to exchange parts until they are REALLY defunct, no preventive exchange, as most airlines do.
And delays in deliveries? There are more than 100 A380s in servive…BA just ordered late and, as my memory goes, they delyed some deliveries.

[pdtraveller]

Flyinfsdier1993. Can you provide supporting evidence to back up you claim. In 30 years of travel I have experienced many issues including type changes and product downgrades. Only BA however has switched long haul aircraft with short haul and I have personally experienced this on TLV run so often that I stopped using BA.

Who else does this?

[Flyingsoldier1993]

pdtraveller, I have been crew for over 23 years and with several airlines. Lufthansa for example in the past has substituted their long haul airbuses with short haul aircraft on flights to the Middle East and I am certain it happens with other carriers as well from time time where two different layouts of the same aircraft exist. If it happens more frequently on one or another carrier, that I do not know.
But it certainly isn’t abnormal or unheard of in the industry.

[LuganoPirate]

Was on flight with Swiss last week on which the plane, the Avro RJ had a tech problem just before boarding. A 20’ delay was announced so back to the lounge, just in time for the lunch offering, which was very good.

To my surprise barely 20′ later we were asked to go back for boarding, we left and landed just 10′ late. I was impressed.

[SimonS1]

Interesting rferguson.

I see the Dubai flight has been cancelled today, the third cancellation in a week. Abu Dhabi/Muscat cancelled yesterday.

Maybe the heat of the Gulf competitors is too much, or they just can’t deliver the schedules these days.

[FrDougal]

The sad fact of the matter is that the BA long haul fleet is falling to pieces and the engineers are far too stretched!

In the last 6 months I have experienced more serious technical incidents than I ever encountered in the previous 11 years of flying. Not all let to cancellations but many have led to aircraft changes after passengers had already boarded with substantial departure delays both down route and more worryingly out of Heathrow!

Engineers are so stretched minor issues which “can wait” are left unfixed…these are generally issues which effect passenger amenities such as the odd broken toilet, bev maker, ovens etc but can also include lighting issues, AC issues etc. Some planes have been flying around for months with problems unresolved.

Blaming the age of the fleet is not an acceptable answer unless BA are willing to charge less for a flight on an “old” plane. One can only hope BA has gotten over its ridiculous obsession with having its engineers working as cabin crew every few weeks as they are really needed elsewhere…..in their real jobs! Fortunately I have the utmost faith in the professionalism of said engineers and pilots and I have no doubt they are all airworthy….but alas they are tatty and tired (the planes that is, not the engineers and pilots! Lol)!!

[AnthonyDunn]

I think that the comments by StandThemUp at 19/06/13 – 11:45 GMT accurately sums up the situation:

http://www.businesstraveller.com/discussion/topic/World-Airline-Awards-Poor-BA?page=1

It would be interesting to see what the situation is with KL/AF, LX, LH and other legacy carriers in North America to determine whether BA’s recent increase in tech delays is unique or more widely occurring. Sadly, none of these other carriers have their own xxSource site and I do not know whether there is an industry wide forum to provide such data to the travelling pubilc. Does anyone know if there is such a site?

I suspect that tech defects are primarily a function of fleet age which is why it has been rising but may then start falling as new aircraft introductions reduce the mean fleet age.

In the meantime, why the obsession with running down BA on every possible occasion? This reminds me rather of the old UK-owned car industry which got kicked to death (by the British themselves) until it finally got closed down and the manufacturing equipment was transferred to China. The resulting closure caused the loss of thousands of UK jobs and £gazillions in taxes to pay for roads, hospitals and pensions etc. As a self-imposed hurt, I am at a loss to think of any other country where this would be considered rational.

[Rockhopper]

I don’t post often and I particularly refrain from posting on BA threads due to their ability to bring out the worst in some posters.

However FrDougal’s post rang very true to me. I had a persistent loyalty to BA that came from growing up in the former colonies but even that loyalty was pushed to the edge by the attitude of BA towards their fare paying passengers. Like FrDougal I have the utmost faith that BA aircraft are airworthy, but frankly that should be a given.

What has made me stop using BA longhaul and in Europe are numerous experiences like those mentioned above which impact my enjoyment of the flight. To give just one example – a flight last year LGW to TPA in CW. I paid for six seats, IFE on the way out worked fully in 1, partially in three and not all in two seats. On the way back two of the six seats again had no functioning IFE. Other issues included amenity packs not being loaded, poor quality wines, awful breakfast on the way back…..the list goes on although I recognise these aren’t all engineering issues.

The result – BA has lost a loyal customer who has flown in every iteration of CW since introduction as well as First. Being based where I am a hop into Europe is no particular hassle so Swiss are now my airline of choice longhaul, and since I have switched I have to say that they deliver a consistently better product every time, and more importantly on the odd occassion technical issues have occured, they have been resolved very satisfactorily.

I would love to make BA my first choice carrier again but until they up their game I’m afraid I’m a lost customer (not that I believe that bothers them particularly!)

[StephenLondon]

@millionsofmiles –
I am concerned with your comment about BA’s lax maintenance – is this something we should all be worried about now with BA? What info can you share with us on poor maintenance / preventative maintenance practices ? -As a frequent traveller, this type of information is critical for my choice of airline as I hold safety above every other aspect including schedule, cabin, service and catering.

@SimonS1: Plenty of carriers change flights around and have cancellations. My last two flights on LH both went tech – call it unlucky, but it wasn’t a pretty sight, and customer service for premium passengers lacked considerably in sorting us out. It was anything but efficient, and any carrier can have a bad few days. CX are getting bad by exchanging regional aircraft on longer sectors (DXB, ADL), and dropping F on HKG-BKK, for example, on a whim with an a/c change with hardly an apology, which is pretty poor for a carrier held in high esteem by so many travellers. And OS swapped a 767 for a 737 on a flight a couple of years back, meaning they offloaded a good chunk of pax and left them behind. I think BA are struggling a bit with the delays to new aircraft delivery…but with new planes imminent, it can (hopefully) only get better.

I did read somewhere that BA never buy in the first fifty of any aircraft. Their first A380 is MSN0095, I believe (someone mentioned this on Monday). I gather they prefer to let others iron out the kinks, cracks and hiccups before taking delivery of a new plane. Same with the 787, I guess.

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