[IanFromHKG]

Seeing these tales of acronyms reminds me of one my brother encountered while doing a surgical residency somewhere in East Anglia. He kept seeing the annotation “NFN”, with which he was unfamiliar. Apparently it means “Normal – For Norfolk”

[esselle]

ABCNS

Always bloody complains, never satisfied.

[Tallinnman]

As a 16 year old baggage handler in my school holidays at a small airport with no conveyor belts, we stood behind check in and manually weighed bags before kicking a door open and depositing the luggage on a suitable but not always correct trolley outside.
Heard one of the checkin staff calming down an irate late passenger who was becoming increasingly rude with the words ‘there is nothing we can do sir, its FTL in our system”
I plucked up the courage a short while later to enquire as to what FTL meant and was informed by a ‘sweet’ chorus of the check in staff

F*****g Too Late 🙂

[KarlMarx]

I was not writing in jest, but for the avoidance of doubt, neither was I suggesting that all airline employees are contemptuous of the passenger. Let me list my objections to the story.

Firstly, it strikes me as being apocryphal, in that the person writing does not seem to be there and cannot say who the passenger was. I am sorry, but that seems to indicate a ‘friend of a friend knew someone …….’ type of story.

Secondly, airlines have big data and track pax through the airport, they know who goes where, when. Establishing a behavioural pattern would be easier and escorts from the lounge could discretely get him to the gate on time. I recently witness BA special services helping a famous face through security, when pushed for time.

Thirdly, airlines like high profile passengers, just watch special services escorting them through the airport – even if this person was a ‘C’ lister, they’ll get better treatment than me (and probably you.)

Fourthly, when baggage is offloaded from the hold, it doesn’t go to the gate, does it? It has to be reclaimed downstairs, so the person can then exit via customs.

So I conclude that this story was invented by an airline employee with too much time on their hands and has become an urban legend.

The whole tenor of the story showers contempt on a passenger and shows how the clever airline staff confounded him/her.

The reality is that Naomi Campbell is flying BA again, despite being prosecuted for the incident, accoring to a UK paper.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2389126/BA-staffs-anger-Naomi-Campbell-let-board-airlines-flights-despite-abusing-airline-crew.html.

Airlines like being associated with celebs (Hello Gwyneth) and the income stream associated.

So with all due respect, I do not believe this story.

[OneA]

…..or the tattooed nouveau riche oafs demanding a change of seat within F “or they will take their business to another airline” – well frankly we wish they would!! Im sure they would be at home on a KLM / Lyin Air alliance…

[SimonS1]

The Daily Mail article sounds total tosh as well. Especially the repeated references to the “First Class flight to Milan”.

I wonder if she enjoyed the enhanced CE seating.

[SimonRowberry]

Seems like Karl Marx is the new VK.

God almighty, why are some of you so seemingly inherently and unnecessarily unpleasant and/or confrontational?

That’s why so many of us long-standing posters don’t participate anymore.

[MartynSinclair]

Hi Simon

Hope you are recovering well – you do not need the stress of this thread :))

Kind regards

[MrMichael]

+1 SimonRowberry. I have only been participating on this forum for a matter of months, and am surprised that a subject such as travel can bring out such vitriol from a small number of posters. I have a rule drummed in to my long ago school days, “manners make the man”. That certainly does not mean agreeing with everything nor staying silent when one disagrees. It means challenging politely and with good grace, to debate and to persuade, and certainly never to abuse a poster or make them feel anything other than a valuable member of the forum.

[KarlMarx]

SimonS1 – 28/11/2014 20:58 GMT

I agree with your comments, both about the DM article being tosh and the implication about the reduced seat pitch in BA Club Europe, which has persuaded me to switch my bi-monthly jaunts to Switzerland, to Swiss.

That said, the DM would not publish such a story unless the basic facts were true (lawyers would spike it) and the relevant facts for this thread are that (a) a celeb did something on board serious enough to result in prosecution and conviction and (b) the same celeb is once more flying on the same airline, QED airlines like to have celebs on their flights.

[KarlMarx]

MrMichael – 29/11/2014 06:30 GMT

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I am not implying that the person who posted the apocryphal story on here is contemptuous of passengers, nor am I implying that all airline staff are, in my travels most are friendly, gracious and helpful.

What I am saying is that the story itself appears to be crafted out of contempt, envy, call it whatever you like (I asked my partner, who is a psych and she said it could be a passive aggressive reaction to having to pay lip service to difficult celebs, whatever that means) and that in the real world. airlines fall over backwards to avoid such problems with celebrities (rightly or wrongly.)

I post this, as you have made a good point and I wish to be clear that my post was not aimed at the person who repeated the story on here and unlike Mr Rowberry’s post, seeks to cast no aspersion on anyone on this thread, as well as being written in temperate terms.

Given the tone and content of Mr Rowberry’s post, I can only say that I am pleased he chooses to comment irregularly.

Everyone should be able to express an opinion, in a polite manner.

[MrMichael]

Karlmarx, many thanks for clearing that up. I do disagree with you though on the actions of the staff in the case of the celeb they offloaded. I personally find it irritating beyond belief when planes are held up because the passenger is late at the gate. Irrelevant if they are a celeb or not, if the boarding pass says 10.35 then be there at 10.35, or go get a later flight.

Should the staff have kept the baggage to one side, yes I believe so, whether a regular and/or a celeb if somebody is regularly late to the gate then I think it is a fair and well thought out call. Being late at the gate shows disrespect for the other 100/200/300/400 people on board waiting to go, some in a desperate hurry. On more than one occasion my takeoff slot has been lost due to waiting for ten minutes for some donut to turn up or for their baggage to be found and unloaded. Whether the story is true or not I have no idea, but the principle of risk management in that case to me makes sense, both from an airline business point of view and the sanity of all the other passengers who left half their coffee behind and are now waiting for the off.

[Tallinnman]

Karl Marx – perhaps your partner would be kind enough to do a psych eval on your good self 🙂

[CharlesRhona]

I fully support such actions by staff. Think of the disruption. I can remember a similar situation that happened to me in the early 1990s. A no show who had already checked in luggage delayed our flight to LHR for over an hour while the luggage was found and offloaded. Unfortunately we missed our slot to LHR. As a result I missed my connection to CGK but was eventually re-routed with another airline. However, my luggage did not turn up for another 3 days resulting in BA having to meet expenditure on clothing and toiletries for both myself and my wife. No doubt other passengers on the flight to LHR had connection problems all of which likely incurred BA in unnecessary costs. Travellers who turn up late – or not at all – can severely disrupt the travel plans of others and should have more thought for their fellow travellers..

[KarlMarx]

MrMichael – 29/11/2014 08:01 GMT/ CharlesRhona – 29/11/2014 09:00 GMT

I have no problem with offloading late pax, none at all. The needs of the many and all that.

For various reasons, I believe the tale related is apocryphal and never happened and that airlines probably do cut ‘celebs’ a degree of slack that is not universal. It is not fair, but is life ever?

[Author]

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