WHBM

Just heard a story being told by Eamonn Holmes on TV this morning (believe he said it was in papers too) that on Sun evening WW flight from Edinburgh to E Midlands, after takeoff pax were told they were "diverting to Jersey first" to pick up 30 passengers there presumably stranded from an earlier flight, and after boarding them there, by now approx 2200 (and I thought Jersey closed at 2100) it was then announced they were going to be taken to Cardiff - after which there was a lot of trouble in the cabin from the EDI-EMA pax.

Tempted to say "no wonder", but anyone have an accurate account of this ?

BRISTOLRE

Just heard the same story on BBC R2 but they gave it out as Nottingham Airport which we all know they meant EMA or "Nottingham East Midlands"....


Bizarre routing for the EMA pax to go via JER and potentially CWL for what would nromally be a short EDI-EMA sector!! I can understand the pax frustration.

Beeb mentioned some kind of "protest".
Aircraft arrived EMA after stopping at JER and CWL passengers went by coach onwards EMA-CWL (long way !!!)

WelshHack

Does anybody know why the Welsh passengers were stranded in Jersey, and how long they were delayed?

Anthony Carn

If this is true, then it really does show the attitude.............well I won't stick my neck out to state the obvious.

BTW, BRISTOLRE, coach/minibus EMA - CWL is indeed a long way. I'm sure all the baby aircrew who've done it, especially at the beginning or end of a day's work, will agree on that one.

BDWW

I'm afraid its just one of many "horror" stories that happens with bmibaby. The source of the initial problem actually occured in Jersey. The CWL-JER had a very harsh landing in Jersey, where the brakes failed on KC (according to an avionics engineer at EMA) and almost overran the runway. (bearing in my mind, at one end of the runway in JER there is a cliff!). This shook up the crew so much that they couldn't operate the return leg, also i believe they were not sure what happened. So a new crew was flown down from EMA on the EMA-BCN flight (delaying this flight by about 2 hours). KC was evidently not serviceable. As Jersey airport closes at 21:00 to make sure the JER-CWL pax were not stranded on the island, BD ops diverted the EDI-EMA to JER to pick up the stranded pax. Apparently they could not land at EMA and drop off the EDI pax before going onto JER because Jersey had already kept it open for a while and said that if an a/c didn't get to JER by a certain time the airport would close. So the aircraft was diverted to Jersey to pick up the passengers, only for the JER-CWL pax to find out once onboard,that they will not be going to Cardiff but to EMA where Coaches will take them to CWL! (At the time they had already been delayed 9 hours!!!) and so naturally they kicked off when they were told they were going to EMA. And to cap it all off for the CWL pax, coaches didn't arrive at EMA to take them to CWL until 4am! so in all it was a bad day for bmibaby! Hope this clarifies what happened as when i was told what happened i couldn't believe it!

Anthony Carn

No hotels in Jersey any more then ?

Ooops ! Sorry ! Hotels cost money !

WHBM

Well if the inbound had a brake failure well done to the crew for pulling it up without overrunning.

Was there really no base engineer who could give a go/no go on the aircraft before the messing about with the Barcelona flight ? The inbound from Cardiff was due into Jersey at 14.15 in the early afternoon.

And as there were apparently about 30 pax at Jersey for Cardiff would it not have been cheaper to charter a 340 (or even The Shed!) from Aurigny to take them over to Cardiff, rather than all this messing about, costs, and bad publicity ? Does nobody at Baby HQ have authority to subcharter ?

[edited for the Friday/Sunday confusion]

BDWW

The date when all this happened was Friday 12th March, not Sunday 14th March. But infact the EMA-EDI WW5191 on Sun 14th March was indeed delayed by 2 hours due to tech aircraft (KA)

Partly Achieved

After Babys landing incident at Cardiff on Sat 21 Feb, Baby cancelled my flight back from Prestwick on the following Sunday night.

No alternative flight that night, no attempt to find another aircraft, no hotel. And customer service which can only be described as pathetic.

I know it's low cost, but......!

crewmeal

And people complain about BA????????????????

Turn It Off

Did i read in that lot that it was KC that had a problem with brakes on landing at EGJJ?

Which one was it that had an incident at EGFF?

Little Blue

I knew we would see your happy , smiling face on here, Mr Carn.
Most of the facts stated are correct..Yes, it was last Friday night..I should know cos I was in Ops all night !!!
A few points that need to be straightened.
1stly, the reason the pax weren't hotac'd in JER was that
there was no alternative for them on the following day.
2ndly, the decision to divert the EDI-EMA to Jer was made very late. due to a number of extenuating circumstances, hence the EDI pax kicking off, initially.
3rdly, The Captain was asked to PA the EDI pax, once they arriced in JER and see if they would be willing for the a/c to drop into CWL due to the CWL pax being so heavily inconvenienced. Of course, they weren't too happy with that one....then again, nor would I be.
and finally...The coaching situation...From about 2200, EMA were trying to get a coach to take the CWL pax home.Nothing was available, and eventually Aviance, in CWL, were going to send one up from Wales. EMA finally got hold of a coach, but it didn't leave until about 0300.
The crew did a marvellous job, in very difficult conditions, and do you really think that we wanted to mess so many customers about?.
It's obviously still a learning curve, innit.
Hey, PARTLY ACHIEVED, read the small print !!
Boy, I love my job......

teifiboy

Not a Bmi employee, but one thing I have noticed reading any Bmi related threads is Mr Carn's contributions, and the fact that they are always negative. Why stay in a company that annoys you so much!!

Little Blue

Hear hear..I know it's been said b4, but he is the most balanced member of staff that we have..chips on both shoulders !!!

amanoffewwords

BBC version here

WHBM

Well the CAA are usually very insistent that any scheduled service operator have adequate resources to operate their published programme, including being able to handle appropriately situations where things go awry, which we all know happens from time to time.

Rerouting pax in mid flight to the other end of the country (I’m surprised they had the fuel to do it while still remaining within proper diversion limits) and then proposing to send them to a second involuntary en-route stop is not appropriate handling. Nor is giving the Jersey pax an all-night journey for a 45 minute afternoon flight. This was not an emergency; it was just a whim of ops.

I believe that Baby is still operating on the main BMI AOC, so it’s a question for BMI too. If they aren't prepared to make the resources available (and with all aircraft fully programmed each day, and one of the fleet out of action, I’m speaking about paying for either subcharter or putting pax on another operator) then it’s time to hand the AOC back. Which I trust the CAA will tell to Austin Reed and Tony Davis (if he still heads up Baby) in no uncertain terms.

Fuzzy112

If you pay a few pence for your ticket you should expect less customer service than baby have provided. Non of these airlines are charities. They want as much of your money as possible and to be able to provide the least possible for it. I am surprised they did not charge extra for the bus to CWL. I am sure everyone involved in the saga did not intentionally inconvenience anyone but it is a good example that it can and does go wrong sometimes. The biggest problem I see is the chance of customer brand confusion as in BA with GO. Let us hope that the regulars out of LHR don't read this and assume that the rest of bmi are the same shambolic bunch. Good timing really as baby just got its own AOC. I am very pleased to be working for a different company now.

WHBM

Well if Baby have just got their own AOC it will be an interesting start for them dealing with the regulators at the CAA over what they did to the Edinburgh pax.

We all know that the CAA has built up a long and well understood but demanding approach to what they expect of AOC holders in the way of operational ability, resources, financial backing, etc, right down to the smallest and most impoverished air-taxi operator. In fact if the air taxi operator actually gives them the impression of being impoverished, they're finished. Absolutely nowhere have the CAA said (contrary to what the Lo-costs try and have you believe) that all this is somehow conditional depending on what fare you pay.

One of their key tenets is that you have the resources to meet your commitments to those who have paid to go with you in a professional and acceptable manner, particularly for scheduled services, which is how they have kept the real cowboys out of the business. So let us see the CAAs response. Airlines are indeed not charities. And once they take money and take a commitment, by golly they had better carry it out with best endeavours.

I also doubt that pax on a Friday night paid a "few pence" for their tickets. Looking at fare quotes for the days ahead that Friday night flight EDI-EMA appears to be their most expensive of the week on the route.

Little Blue

Facts straight. please..
The EDI pax were advised ON THE GROUND in EDI that the a/c was going to JER , 1st...The flightplan was canx/refiled for JER and away they went....
Do you think that it is profitable for a LO/CO to have a back-up a/c for any eventuality?
And as for a whim of OPS?
You appear to have the answers....so go on..
make a silk purse from a sows ear!!!

Anthony Carn

I give my opinion. I'll continue to do so.

In what way is the post...........

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"No hotels in Jersey any more then ?

Ooops ! Sorry ! Hotels cost money !

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........a negative post ?

I'd call that a positive suggestion !

I'm sure that the Jersey victims involved would have welcomed the positive measure of hotel accomodation in Jersey, instead of a shuttle to EMA followed by a horrendous coach journey EMA to CWL.

I'm sure that the EDI victims involved would have welcomed the positive outcome of a flight to the destination on their tickets instead of covering the equivalent (I estimate) of the entire length of the UK in two flights !