Originally Posted by
WHBM
Colleague is at Athens for the 2000 BA633 departure to LHR today. The outbound was progressively getting put back an hour every hour, when it finally got to 3.5 hours late it was cancelled. Being the end of school holidays, pretty much everything is fully booked.
The "service recovery" is apparently to send a larger (777 instead of 767) aircraft on the same departure tomorrow evening, and rebook everyone 24 hours later. That is the fourth (and last) BA departure of the day from Athens.
I'm sure it accords with the Alex Cruz approach of "every day I think of ways to save money" he recently espoused to the world. Minimal additional cost. Passenger convenience comes last.
The assigned 767 BNWA had apparently not flown since 31 August, so presumably had been on a check at Heathrow. Difficult to see how you can come out of a major check and yet only be first discovered unserviceable 3 hours after your intended departure time.
Reading elsewhere that an outbound B777 for Athens has returned to Heathrow this afternoon...hopefully this wasn't heading out to recover your colleage.