All,
Once again, BACON has failed to perform. Myself, along with a few colleagues regularly commute over to Manchester (2-3 times a month) and have in the past regularly been let down by BACON - basically, the timetable tells porkies
Now, we had started using Flybe as an alternative rather than the BACON option, but since last Friday happened to be our company golf day and given Flybe's new charging scheme for hold baggage we decided to resort to good old British Airways... What a mistake!!! (And yes, I lnow BACON is a franchise partner, not BA Mainline).
So, what happened? Well, we all booked in online the night before and printed our boarding cards.... so far so good. But when we reached the airport the following morning (about 07:40 for an 08:30 departure), we discovered that the fligth had been cancelled - and no-one could give us a reason. Instead everyone for MAN was transferred to the BHX flight (Also 08:35).
Luckily, we had the office change our hire car bookings and al other details, but instead of a half hour drive and time to practise, we ended up with a 2.25hour drive and no practise time
Finally, since the BHX flight was only expecting 12 people (ERJ 145) there was only limited catering.
I should also say at this point that both the ground staff and the cabin crew did a spectacular job in dealing with a lot of
passengers like myself. It is a shame that such professionalism is being let down by poor communication and the ops department.
But to the crux. Do the managers at BACON really feel that this type of service is acceptable. I know aircraft can go "tech" and I am not an unreasonable person, but the regularity with which this service suffers "problems" is beyond a standing joke. We met others in our industry on Friday morning who regaled is with the horror stories of BACON to MAN.
The new services got plenty of advertising in the local press and I am sure initially, plenty of other people were happy to switch back to BA. However, I shall not be flying BACON again and shall be switching back to Flybe and the other alternatives -
being late for a golf day is inconvenient.
Missing a business meeting with a client is not and this is what I must think of in future.
BACON, pls take note. If you want to be successful, you must provide a reliable service.
Regards,
Shuttlebus
P.S. If anyone can enlighten me as to why there was no flight on Friday, I would be interested....