You are obviously not a Driver!!The Crew would have been totally stuck where they were,either on the ramp waiting(park brake on)or at a Stand waiting for the Finger,or as in 45% of T5 stands where NO finger is available,waiting for the GROUND SERVICES company to pull their finger out and produce the steps and the Dispatcher producing a Bus.Even if,as on some A/C,the Crew have their own steps available,they can not deploy,until there is somewhere for the Pax to go!!You can not have them milling about Airside.A Skipper mate of mine was threatened with "Off Roster",when he allowed Pax off to Ident their own Bags,due to 2 pissed nonarrivals!!There was pandemonium-he should have waited until more Staff arrived to control the issue.As has been reported throughout this thread,there does not appear to be the Extra Staff,since they were made redundant on Willy Winkers arrival at BA.Maybe Handsolo,who must be Cabin Staff,can shed a bit more light on BA SOPs,in this matter.However,the problem is common to All airlines,so I can only report my experiences,which I have relaid above!!In the old days,you had Servisair(Circusair),Gatwick Handling,BA Handling,AerLingus Handling or whatever.As Captain,you could shout till you were blue in the face,it would make no difference,except you could relay your problems to the Pax,with a good heart!!BA has its own Handling,so if there is none available-then so be it-you join the queue and wait to be out of hours.That the way life is-you shovel **** uphill until you are a manager!!!!
