I was present and witnessed a lot last night and think you can say the best job was done with the notice period given and the manpower available, yes acft were dropping (11 in the hold at one point) then being marshalled onto stand by the airport. In a couple of instances U2 PSA/LGW and IST/LGW the handlers did not know for a while they had landed and had parked up. Some crews opted to keep pax on board thinking they would get out again, then some airports did not re-open and crew hours became an issue.
Its a simple fact no one can ever be fully prepared for diverts and certainly not that amount at an airport with the apron size of BHX. Who would have thought LGW, LTN and STN would be out at the same time ? (think this was the case for a short period)
More people were angry with being on the acft for hours with no water service offered on some flights, the TOM LGW/FNC was one of the first to land, he decided to wait and see if LGW would open when it did for a while he got a slot, then lost it and went out of hours, in this time pax could of been off and nearly back in LGW it was about 4/5 hours total.
Well done BHX, yes not perfect but as Call100 says it was a case of getting them down where ever safely. I think i read at one point the BA238 was heading off towards Scotland possibly GLA ??? after being told LHR could not cope with pax arriving in the terminals and asked for the arrival rate to slow.
I think Servisair with very few loaders on, coupled with having to turn the scheduled stuff of EK, and two EI's worked there butts off to get 20+ offloaded with single digit manpower, spread over to terminals!