Brewery.Pi$$up. Organise. Rearrange as necessary.

[RevMan2]

LH907 LHRFRA today.

Gate 5C, 5 minutes after STD, I ask the (bmi) gate staff how long the delay's going to be.

"Oh, about 30 minutes. They're [I HATE that - who are THEY?] waiting for a lift for a handicapped [sic] passenger"

Suggest they make an announcement.
They do.

Announce boarding 10 minutes later.
Everyone fronts up.
Everyone waits.
Aircraft jetty not clear.
Wait for 10 minutes.
Board 10 passengers.
Long gap.
More passengers.
Leave with a 50 minute delay.

Get to FRA
Purserette announces that we're at a gate that requires us to exit the terminal via stairs and be bussed back to arrivals.
"And even though we're LATE, our ground staff STILL aren't here"
Wait a good 10 minutes, go down some stairs, get bussed back to arrivals.

What's REALLY happened is that FRA A/P gate management has reassigned the aircraft to an unmanned gate, the LH ground staff is still processing the flight blocking the original gate and can't be in 2 places at once and the airport authority hasn't positioned buses.

What the idiotic handling staff in London and a totally-up-herself purserette have done is to inflict massive brand damage on their employer to a very receptive audience of 100 annoyed passengers.

I'd have a serious word with them.

And then sack their managers for not training them properly.

[BlueTui]

I can't see the problem, did you not get there safely?



The actual fares paid are going down in real terms yet people expect the same service when they were paying half a months salary!

Expect nothing and you'll either be pleasantly surprised or you'll have nothing to grumble about

[RevMan2]

@ Blue Tui
Think you've missed the point.

Online booking, online check-in, bag drop all ace, inflight service excellent, priority bags at the carousel when I got there.

It's all about cretins along the service chain cocking up heroically and doing their very best to turn passengers against their employers at every turn and NOT EVEN REALISING what they're doing.

[edi_local]

I would blame the fact that we are not in Schengen as thew reaosn you were bussed to arrivals. Your flight arrived at a schengen gate at FRA. This happened to me too, last time I used LH at FRA. It's certainly not LHs fault as they go where they are told.

As you said, ground staff can't be 2 places at once and departing flights take priority to minimise delays. Your flight was running off schedule so you had to wait as on time flights also get priority. Better to have 1 flight messed up than 2 or more due to ground staff sitting and waiting to service your delayed aircraft while another one which could go on time is not being seen to.

As for the announcement in LHR,well you're right there, they should have made a tannoy call as soon as it became clear that boarding would not start at the stated time, no argument there.

As for your boarding experience. There could have been any reason why they staggered it as such and it's not really important that PAX know why as it would just cause a lot of huffing, tutting and moaning. No doubt they boarded in rows and people all stood up and qued at the gate, ignoring the ground crews instructions. The dispatcher could well have called for boarding and then the cabin crew held people at the door while previously mentioned disabled passenger was still getting on and didn't want an audience. There could have been congestion on the airbridge or in the cabin (due to pax putting hand baggage away or generally faffing about), meaning the crew had to pause boarding...anything really.

As frustrating as I'm sure it all was, and I've been in similar situations to yourself, LH were not really to blame on this one. They held up their side of the bargain and got you from LHR-FRA in one piece and treated you well on board.

[L'aviateur]

In all of my years of flying, these kind of things have happened on the rare occasions, and it's not something worth getting upset about.

Flights get delayed, baggage goes missing, gates get moved, flights are cancelled, diversions happen, technical faults happen after departure, information doesn't get passed on properly, seats are reassigned, aircraft type is changed, downgrades occur, overbooking and re-routing occur, connections get missed, immigration mess you about, you get a bad set of stewardesses, you get crap service, you get a crap meal, you get a broken seat, a broken IFE, you get someone kicking you in the back, you get on a dirty aircraft....... etc etc etc etc etc. These things have ALL happened to me at one time or another.