The reason given to the 140 or so of us booked on the flight was that the captain was sick and so the flight couldn't operate (which seems reasonable, however, has the standby crew gone the distance now??)
There are no standby crew in New York. The standby crews are all in London, and it would take 24 hours + to get a standby pilot to JFK and rested to operate.
I have to say that was fab as we were given business class seats and the flight was great until we got to our destination and found that our bags hadn't.
Unfortunately breaking down the baggage bins, retagging them with different tags for different flights for every redistributed passenger and then reloading them for every BA flight departing JFK that night would have delayed every BA flight that evening so the reality is they probably won't put them on a flight same day. It happens with a lot of airlines, I've suffered it myself twice.
On questioning the handling agent we found that our bags were probably still at JFK. This annoyed me because
A) we asked to be transferred to the next flight leaving but were specifically told this was not possible as, for security reasons, we couldn't travel without our bags.
Hmmm. There are no restrictions I know of that prevent you travelling without your bags. Your bags may not be able to travel without you, but you can travel without your bags. Seems like a holding excuse to me.
B) In an age of computerisation where I can track exactly even where a Royal Mail parcel is, the lovely "call centre" in Mumbai could only tell me that my bags are missing - which I already know as they didn't come off the conveyor at my destination. As with the majority of businesses that outsource call centres, they are worse than useless, working to a script.
The BA call centres are mostly in Newcastle and New York! There is a dedicated baggage tracing unit you can contact on 0844 493 0785 who may be more helpful, or you can try online
here.
I do find it a little ironic that the handling agents at my final destination could tell me the bags were offloaded at JFK but the BA "call centre" had no idea where the bags were at all (not even how many or where I was actually leaving from or going to).
See above. BA should be able to tell you if the bag was loaded on
any BA flight. If it wasn't then it's still in JFK and they can ship it to you.
Have I missed something here or do I need to resign myself to BA telling me that I will never see my bags again, but at least I got upgraded to business to get home...??
Hopefully you'll see the bags again. The figures for actual bag losses are reassuringly good.