easyflyer83 -
Your reply is unconvincing. So BA will look after pax AFTER they make their OWN way to LHR??? How useful. Might as well book the train in the first place if you don't actually want to travel by air! And being politely transferred to the next day's flight to Miami? So useful when the ship has already sailed. If they cancelled every second shuttle and spread the pain around the short-haul network, such customers would stand a chance. No, this policy has directly affected me twice, and on two other occasions I have had close friends caught out by it returning to Australia after visits. I warn them all to avoid BA like the plague now, and Emirates (avoiding LHR) have served them well so far.
I'm sure the MAN-LHR flights are put through "some sort of trade off or prioritised exercise" just as you say. Trouble is, they always lose! As a customer, that tells me everything I need to know, thankyou.
For as long as BA consider getting MAN passengers to final destination as a nice optional extra on days when everything else is going smoothly, I will avoid them absolutely. We in this region are not paying 'standby' fares to fly BA, you know. We are paying the full whack, so we deserve the same priority as everyone else on the network. If you can't provide the service, don't take the bookings. Fortunately, MAN today offers easy connections around the globe with a good selection of alternative carriers. They haven't let me down; I recommend them and use them myself.
However nicely appointed LHR T5 might be, exiting it landside and making my own way to a very expensive 'on the day' train from Euston doesn't fit in with my preferred itinerary. And by the way, on the one occasion I have used T5 it had all its escalators switched off. Reminded me of somewhere closer to home! And, having ordered a main course at one of its eateries, I was told that I could not have a dessert because the kitchen staff were going home. Maybe they could have mentioned that at the outset before they all ******ed off and the customers could have ordered a few minutes in advance. At least I saved on the tip, and the dessert from that M&S outlet downstairs was half the price and very agreeable anyway. Nope. Nice building, same old arrogant non customer-focused London service. Other hubs for me, thankyou! And I've seen nothing to persuade me to re-recommend LHR to friends visiting MAN either.