Originally Posted by
Cazza_fly
Unfortunately things like this happen in the airline industry, just also an unfortunate event of life.
As for getting passengers back on the earlier scheduled flights, you kind of answered yourself in your post. The earlier flights are most obviously alrealdy booked full. It's standard not to inconvenience further passengers on non-disrupted flights by any airline. If there does happen to be any available seats on the earlier services to accommodate disrupted passengers, it will usually be on a first come basis and then usually prioritised on exec status / onward connecting flight availabilty etc.
I'm sure BA would rather this had not happened. Chartering in an aircraft can be easier said than done. Also organising a suitable spare standby aircraft at short notice with sufficient crewing which wouldn't further disrupt tomorrows schedules is not always possible either.
Atleast your friend and their fellow passengers have been informed of BA's plan for them and have not totally been left stranded.
Am afraid that approaches like this with a "well it happens" view from internal airline personnel are part of the issue; apart from it being a cover for mishandled situations, proactive service recovery has gone in many places. And it's generally all down to cost. I didn't actually speak about chartering in an aircraft, but if we wish to I will point out that the Titan 767 has been sat at Stansted all day ...
Part of the current problem is emphasis placed on punctuality statistics, and percentage of flights late. If one gets an issue now a greater concern is not to let any subsequent flight have any knock-on impact, even by minutes, meanwhile those on the affected flight are dumped, as here.