Chaos at Terminal 5
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Is there a tendancy for staff, faced with all the aggrevation from passengers caught up in the chaos, to summon the police to assist?
I travelled through Gatwick North Terminal on a 5.45am BA flight in August 2006 on the first day of the alleged plot to bomb BA planes that led to initially no hand luggage at all being allowed (from that morning) and then the no liquids and only one very small piece of hand luggage policy a few days later.
That day passengers were given no information on what was happening or why and why they could not take even take car keys with security fobs or valuable computers with vital data in their hand luggage but anyone who dared challenge the situation was immediately threatened with exclusion from their flight and explulsion from the terminal if they did not comply. The culture now is very definitely that the rights of the BA and BAA staff come a very big first and that the passengers are more like inmates in a prison or a tyrranical boarding school who must do precisely as they are told. There seems to be a view that there are plenty more of them around and that they only get in the way of BA and BAA staff having a stress free day.
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Computer says "Yes" 
Join Date: May 2000
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Yes it is absolutely the case that passengers who are being treated like total garbage and placed in impossible situations are now routinely threatened with eviction from the terminal by Police
That day passengers were given no information on what was happening or why and why they could not take even take car keys with security fobs or valuable computers with vital data in their hand luggage but anyone who dared challenge the situation was immediately threatened with exclusion from their flight and explulsion from the terminal if they did not comply.
The culture now is very definitely that the rights of the BA and BAA staff come a very big first and that the passengers are more like inmates in a prison or a tyrranical boarding school who must do precisely as they are told.
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If you don't like the rules write to your MP
At the end of the day if the staff were not prepared to slavishly follow ridiculous edicts the ridiculous edicts could not be enforced.
I've told you a million times not to exaggerate?
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I look forward to seeing your one man protest against speed cameras then.
See http://pepipoo.com/ and www.abd.org.uk
And when did I mention speed cameras?
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Identical concept. Do you really, for one tiny moment, think it's realistic for staff to just refuse to implemet these edicts? And the world will just carry on? I'll tell you what will happen. TRANSEC will close the airport and it won't re-open until they comply with the restrictions. The airport owner will sack all the people who refuse to comply and replace them with people who will. Now, who's going to make a stand and be sacked for your right to carry a key fob or laptop?
Mistrust in Management
Update from a punter
As I've been in and out of Oslo since Monday 31 Mar flying my 737 in dirty civvies I've checked with Menzies on the status of my missing bag.
At the end of each duty I've checked in with the duty staff in the arly evening always to be told that your bag is not here.
I checked on Friday and they were so busy that they told me to check the four recently arrived trolleys myself. I did that to find nothing. (Fantastic customer service eh - a club pssenger told to root around a load of trolleys!)
On Saturday (after fliyng to Alicante and back) I checked again with Menzies (BA reps) to be told that my bag was not at Oslo because it had been sent back to LHR where I was to pick it up!!!!!
I did point out that I had stated that I was in Oslo until Saturday; that was met with a shrug of the shoulders.
I do despair.
Regards
Exeng
At the end of each duty I've checked in with the duty staff in the arly evening always to be told that your bag is not here.
I checked on Friday and they were so busy that they told me to check the four recently arrived trolleys myself. I did that to find nothing. (Fantastic customer service eh - a club pssenger told to root around a load of trolleys!)
On Saturday (after fliyng to Alicante and back) I checked again with Menzies (BA reps) to be told that my bag was not at Oslo because it had been sent back to LHR where I was to pick it up!!!!!
I did point out that I had stated that I was in Oslo until Saturday; that was met with a shrug of the shoulders.
I do despair.
Regards
Exeng
Mistrust in Management
Inside Info
My last two sectors were with an F/O who used to be BA management and has some inside info.
He told me that the word is Willie was told that T5 was not ready. Apparently (if it is to be believed) Willie took a gamble on T5 working because he wanted the costs to be placed within the current financial year.
I'm not a financial expert in any way shape or form, but if that is true then that is a gamble that has not paid off and he and the leadership team should pay.
Regards
Exeng
He told me that the word is Willie was told that T5 was not ready. Apparently (if it is to be believed) Willie took a gamble on T5 working because he wanted the costs to be placed within the current financial year.
I'm not a financial expert in any way shape or form, but if that is true then that is a gamble that has not paid off and he and the leadership team should pay.
Regards
Exeng
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Sack Them All
I agree ExEng Sack the lot of them. There is no doubt WW knew the as everyone else at BA also knew the show wasn't ready. He and his lack luster team need to go
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BBCnews24, if you are not BAEng in a different guise, are a proper journo with the best interests of aviation put above normal journo's instincts to see their byline on stories and have been 'following' this you will realise that BAEng was actually an open terminal in a crew room and the person posting could change depending on shift changes. The posts were constant and views erratic but with a broad slant against BA. That is fair enough but trying to get a handle on gripes can be hard and generally slagging something off is no solution. I will debate any point with anyone but not a rotating, faceless bunch of tossers who think this sport; a great airline is being brought down here and BAEng purports to work for them.
I would also question your credentials as a journo, pprune is good for getting the gossip if you are that way inclined but it is lazy journalism to take it as your only source and , I would suggest, your time would be better spent actually investigating the story than trawling through 50+ pages to find f**k all of substance.
I do hope your journalistic technique improves, if it requires honing I can consult with colleagues who mat suggest suitable college courses.
I would also question your credentials as a journo, pprune is good for getting the gossip if you are that way inclined but it is lazy journalism to take it as your only source and , I would suggest, your time would be better spent actually investigating the story than trawling through 50+ pages to find f**k all of substance.
I do hope your journalistic technique improves, if it requires honing I can consult with colleagues who mat suggest suitable college courses.
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An IT Man Writes...
I may not be a pilot or an aviation engineer, but I do have twenty plus years in IT development and operation. And let me hand you all a simple fact: systems never, ever get fixed overnight.
If you've been developing and testing a system for years, and it's in operation and failing, you'll never be able to fix anything in short timescales. If it worked in testing and not in production, the issues will be narrow race conditions and resource starvation, and both of those are hard to fix. If they weren't you would have found and fixed them before you went into production. Computer systems fail non-linearly and explosively, so you often don't have much warning and end up with little evidence.
The best you can do overnight is unwind changes (surely to God they haven't been hacking and patching over the weekend?) or put everything back to a known state and pray it doesn't happen again (Yoke Peter? Just a one off). If they think someone is going to stare at the code, say ``ahh! That's the wrong bit!'', compile, install and be a hero they must be dreaming: it's not directly safety-critical, but I presume bag-reconciliation is subject to some audit.
In some scenarios you find a toxic wotsit: a file, or item of email, or database record that when accessed causes hell to break loose. If you can identify it you can find it, remove it (where possible), pray another one doesn't arise and use it to get your developers to fix the bug. But I'd be surprised if that were the case here.
If you've been developing and testing a system for years, and it's in operation and failing, you'll never be able to fix anything in short timescales. If it worked in testing and not in production, the issues will be narrow race conditions and resource starvation, and both of those are hard to fix. If they weren't you would have found and fixed them before you went into production. Computer systems fail non-linearly and explosively, so you often don't have much warning and end up with little evidence.
The best you can do overnight is unwind changes (surely to God they haven't been hacking and patching over the weekend?) or put everything back to a known state and pray it doesn't happen again (Yoke Peter? Just a one off). If they think someone is going to stare at the code, say ``ahh! That's the wrong bit!'', compile, install and be a hero they must be dreaming: it's not directly safety-critical, but I presume bag-reconciliation is subject to some audit.
In some scenarios you find a toxic wotsit: a file, or item of email, or database record that when accessed causes hell to break loose. If you can identify it you can find it, remove it (where possible), pray another one doesn't arise and use it to get your developers to fix the bug. But I'd be surprised if that were the case here.
Last edited by xyzzy; 6th Apr 2008 at 07:37. Reason: Typos
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GobonaStick: many journalists have atrocious spelling in their mother tongue... that is what sub editors are for (if their company has not got rid of them all).
Sometimes it is felt better to have a good "digger" for news compared to a person who writes like an acadmic (nothing wrong with academia but it is not the same as writing a news story) or who just takes the news at face value.
Sometimes it is felt better to have a good "digger" for news compared to a person who writes like an acadmic (nothing wrong with academia but it is not the same as writing a news story) or who just takes the news at face value.
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100 % of Flights on Saturday
Does anybody know if BA managed to get every flight off on time and with bags on Saturday. I only get Sky News here in Sweden and they have been silent on it.
Couldonlyaffordafiver
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No, the baggage system failed again. 12 outbound and 12 inbound flights were cancelled.
Today, there's about an inch and half of snow in the south east of England.
Today, there's about an inch and half of snow in the south east of England.