BA gone to pot
 

So what is happening at Heathrow? 25 flights cancelled on Monday and many more delayed, passengers left in the dark and on the ground. Rumors abound that staff are going sick now before it counts against their £1000 bonus.

I saw it on the bbc website, because of CSA shortage at LHR they had to cancel lots of flights.

They are recruiting 60 new staff, but as they only offer a temporary (with absolutely NO chance of it being extended) 6 month contract, what kind of incentive is that?

Staff Travel equates to nothing, as the SBY's and ID's are done on length of service; so all they get is hotlines which are not that much cheaper tahn published fares anyway.

Shortage of staff and 3 long haul flights cancelled due to technical problems are blamed for yesterdays problems. Another 10 flights cancelled today. What a way to treat their customers as nobody was telling them what the problems were.

This company is going from bad to worse. Why should anyone book with a company with so many problems and have a management who do not have a clue about what is going on.

These let down passengers will not travel BA again and a lot of them will have been transfering to long haul where the money is made.

Not "The World's Favourite" anymore I fear, especially after the strike threat and now this. Bad press everywhere.

I had business customers come down from Newcastle to Heathrow twice to see me in the last few weeks (August 4 and 13) and on both days their 1800 return to Newcastle was cancelled and they ended up getting stuck in London overnight. We've changed the way we do the project now, no more of this nonsense.

This morning there is a patronisingly-worded statement on ba.com saying "Due to a number of contributory factors there have been a small number of cancellations on 24 August" - followed by a list of no less than 21 flights. Now I don't know who at Waterside thinks that to cancel 21 flights (and god knows how many more as the day progresses) is only a "small number", but they are clearly detached from reality.

Can someone in the know tell me... How long (in days / weeks) is the BA check-in (PRS) training course?

This from the press:

Several thousand British Airways passengers faced delays and cancellations at Heathrow Airport because of staff shortages and technical problems, it emerged today.

The problems began after the airline cancelled three long-haul flights to the United States yesterday afternoon over technical problems with the aircraft.

The disruption worsened BA's current staff shortages and led to the cancellation of another 22 flights - most of which were short-haul - and others being delayed.

Up to 5,000 passengers are thought to have been affected by the disruption which comes at one of the busiest times of the year for the airline industry.

Some were accommodated on later flights, some were provided with overnight hotel accommodation and seats on flights today while others simply had to rebook.

A BA spokeswoman said there could be a knock-on effect to services today.

"We apologise sincerely to those customers affected by the disruption to flights at Heathrow Airport yesterday," she said.

"Due to a number of operational reasons we have cancelled 25 flights and some services have been delayed.

"August is the busiest period of the year for British Airways and services at Heathrow are stretched.

"We have also had some technical problems with our aircraft and these combined has resulted in the cancellations.

"Our staff are working extremely hard to ensure operations return to normal."

The US-bound flights cancelled due to technical problems were those to Philadelphia, Chicago and New York.

Among the short-haul flights that were cancelled were those to Edinburgh, Munich and Aberdeen.

British Airways is currently recruiting more staff.

Only last weekend, a planned strike by BA workers for the August Bank Holiday weekend was called off.

The strike had threatened to cause travel chaos to tens of thousands of holidaymakers.

However, unions representing baggage handlers and check-in staff at airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, agreed a pay deal with managers to head off the 24 hour walkout.

BA has agreed an 8.5% pay increase over three years as well as £1,000 payable in three lump sum payments between now and September 2006.

New?
 

This certainly can't be good news for anybody.

BA unfortunately hasn't been very reliable since they got rid of the Stratocruisers....downhill ever since.
Missed opportunities by the bucketful.
In a sorry state and not likely to change anytime soon.:sad: :uhoh:

The three long haul cancellations yesterday.........anything to do with EWS perhaps ???........ ( official version of " technical problems " ) seems like the CAA would not give any more dispensations to not fix ADDs.

Surprised that this discussion hasn't appeared earlier as BA have been cancelling lots of flights for weeks , down to a combination of lack of staff and lack of serviceable aircraft..........

Anyone want to buy a computer system that costs over 200 Million pounds and still doesn't work ??? :yuk: :yuk: :yuk:

Night surcharges??
Several BA domestic & shorthaul flights departed & arrived LHR way after 0001z today, numerous A319 & B757 left rather EARLY !

what's going on?
 

What is going on at BA? A huge % of the workforce are dissatisfied with pay and conditions, literally thousands of lost bags, staff shortages and "technical" (or poor maintenance?) probs causing cancellations and delays left right and centre and a notable increase in 777s and 747s in significant emergencies (LHR-HRE, LHR-YYZ, MIA-LHR, LHR-MIA, PHX-LHR.....)
What next?

OJS,

I used to be a CSA for BA.

The course was just over 5 weeks long, and it certainly wasnt all about PRS!

The pass rates are very high, and bearing in mind I have passed succesfully many crew courses, the CSA course was the hardest, most pressurized and demoralizing course I have ever done.


5 people were either told to leave or couldnt take it anymore.

Apparently they were and still are trialling a new training course.

Be prepared for a lot of tears. I made some great friends though.


Oh and also you have to learn EVERY airport code, and these are tested every day!

I have no connection with BA and no particular liking for them, but this constant raising of the baggage problems is misleading.
The problem arose because of freak weather conditions at their main base and was not to do with any ongoing inefficiencies in their baggae dept. With the high percentage of transfer passengers that they carry there was always going to be problems getting bags back with the passengers.
Re-uniting pax with their bags is not straight forward and anyone who thinks it is should spend a day with the baggage facilities dept and see the fun and games they have when this sort of disruption happens.
Sure BA has plenty of other problems at the moment which are a result of poor management and unrealistic unions, but the severe baggage problem was a one off.

Serious problems seem to continue and get worse. No sign of Eddington fronting up for the company on press and TV on this or the strike threat and in the TV pictures of the terminals theres no sign of the management walking the floor. BA is the best payer and has the best general terms and conditions in the UK industry. The problems show its not really all about money,- its about people management and its not complex stuff. Its about getting out of offices and meetings and onto the floor and ramp and wherever people work and just talking to them. "Laptop management" simply wont do and nor will suited state visits, in-touch days where once in a decade some managers meet actual staff and customers. These things are just patronising. What is important,- and any manager worth their position should instinctively know, and enjoy, -is constant day to day contract with the real world. BA has become entangled by its own processes and proceedures,- talks a lot about people issues, political correctness etc etc but seems to lack both people skills in actually relating to staff and customers ,and competitive and business instincts when dealing with the market.

Skylion,

Amen to all that!

PHX

411A,
Have to take exception there.
In the eighties, under the management of King & Marshall, BA enormously improved their passenger appeal. Working for a Persian Gulf airline, I listened to our passenger comment about BA and it was almost invariably complimentary.
Subsequently, Ayling tried some interesting ideas with mixed results. Losing the brand with 'ethnic' fins was not one of his successes.
Under Eddington they seem to have drifted a bit.
The comment by Street this morning that they are short of check in staff demonstrates a remarkable lack of basic forward planning although his partial excuse of difficulties with ID cards is believable in the present imbroglio.

Skylion,
Yes, recollect a fairly prestigious crew hotel in Scotland where the general manager (not just the duty manager) walked the floor and spoke to staff and guests alike.
Gave one a nice warm feeling, esp when he paid for the drinks as well :ok:

Ask NATS why...
 

WHY they had 19 of 26 Purchasing staff request redundancy when they implemented SAP R3... the same software that is currently causing chaos in EWS - backlogs, shortages, delays, etc etc. The system DIDN'T work for NATS, who I understand manfully soldiered on until the next release (R4?) was available; Singapore Airlines dumped it, and what did BA do?? Spend MEGA amounts on a system that plainly is NOT the be-all-and-end-all that SAP Marketing claim it to be! I believe it's only a matter of time before we see fatalities - and I don't mean a SAP-user committing suicide! SAP is NOT the software for EWS. Ask Stores. See the heaps of components/tyres etc. awaiting repair. WHY has CAA not grounded BA yet?

Looks like the London Evening Standard hacks read Pprune.

Just had the early editions delivered to the dealing room and the front page splash is 'Flights chaos at Heathrow'. A lot of the story seems somewhat similar to what has appeared on this thread....

Link here.

Surely not:

Let me give you an example of a current stupidity that caused me to have my baggage lost for 2 days for the first time ever for me.

BA have scheduled their St Petersburg flight out of T1 this summer at 06.55. They have a procedure that all visas on flights to Russia need to be checked by supervisors at the check-in desks. But the supervisors do not come on duty until 06.00. So checking in before this time (which of course most do) causes puzzlement over what to do. And my bags were "red tagged", which I was told meant they were put to one side until my visa was checked, again at the gate. And of course you can guess what happened can't you ..... And at St Petersburg there were a whole lot of pax with missing bags, and no English-speaking staff on duty in the baggage hall.

And this is nothing to do with a one-off weather problem and everything to do with basic mismanagement of the staff.

Not only ground staff shortage. Subsid Citiexpress is running on goodwill of cabin crew and flight crew working overtime. Cancellations rife over past 3 or 4 weekends. The balloon will burst soon.