BA @ Edinburgh shambles this evening.
 

Ahead of schedule currently routing direct to the final approach crowed the captain of the inbound flight to Edinburgh this evening. More verbiage about how early we were as we arrived on stand. 55 minutes later we were finally released and we listened to a litany of excuses. Apparently due to I kid you not, covid of course, there was only one set of steps @ Edinburgh and these were nowhere to be found. The lad behind me mildly enquired and complained to the senior cabin crew and was barked at in return ‘to not take his frustration out on the staff’. Very precious and unjustified. Having enjoyed a packet of crisps and a bottle of water as our in flight ‘refreshment’ I can only say that the former national carrier is a national embarrassment. Yes I know times are tough but really.

Well the last time I flew BA 10 years ago in club LGW to Naples, we HAD to ask the cabin crew to get up and serve us a drink and food after being airborne 50 mins, cabin crew were very rude and lazy the whole flight, I’ve never flown BA ever again after this terrible service.

I've heard worse shambles to be honest, all things considered...

How were you going to be 'released' without the steps being there? Climb off the wing? (Mind you is the US it's been know for a disgruntled, impatient passenger to pull the emergency chute).

Check your facts
 

Your issue is wholly the responsibility of Edinburgh airport and Menzies, BA has absolutely no control over the ground staff there who deal with that, how many steps there are, or even where the steps are on the airfield. Something you should bear in mind before blaming any carrier.

To think they once ran an empire on which the sun never set.

Which will clearly have had absolutely nothing to do with BA and everything to do with the handlers. What do you want the flight crew to do, make some steps out of bits of plastic they can find in the flight deck?

Not that I am or wish to be any apologist for BA. The company (though not many of the employees!) deserve to go to hell in a handcart! But it doesn’t sound like your problems had anything to do with the airline.

Do be sure to take your ire out on the right target!

On this occasion that would be Edinburgh airport. Since I presume BA have outsourced their handling there on the altar of ‘cost saving’!

Incidentally. Perhaps the majority of passengers should ask themselves how much they paid for a ticket, and how that can possibly be a half or a third of what it was ten years ago?

Just a thought??!

Sorry, but I obviously did not explain well enough so let me clarify. I am well aware that it is the outsourced handling company that provides ancillary equipment. Ironiquement I have been in exactly the same position at the sharp end of a leisure airline B737 prior to my retirement. This happened more than once and I was unsurprisingly based @EDI.The only difference was that I was not on the PA every 20 seconds plus personal appearance in front of the passengers ad nauseam. Sometimes less is more.I know that it is not the flight crew fault but the self aggrandisement on the PA coupled with snippy cabin crew and combined with the water, crisps and face masks add up to a miserable experience. And we were imprisoned for 55 minutes due organisational issues which I would have thought a ‘superior ‘ product such as BA could have provided. Yes I know it is not the worst shambles in the world but it is not good either. Hope that helps.

You mention also that you arrived early, in which case it's not unreasonable to expect the handling agent to not be there ready to meet you. In normal times, it's a big challenge for the more capacity constrained airports and the handlers, one in which the airlines have little care about and see arriving half an hour early as job well done. You're lucky you maybe wouldn't be able to get on stand even in such a situation.

You can argue to the cows come home about whose to blame, or even the whole blame culture for that matter. But at the end of the day, the airports and handlers can only plan to schedule with the limited resource the airlines fundamentally are willing to pay the cost towards. Unless you're a CDM airport (which only a handful besides the main hub airports are currently) with better insight on real targeted times, it's not a situation likely to improve anytime soon. And of course understandably, the resource provision will be rock bottom at the moment for all the right reasons.

Of course it's frustrating for the customer, and I won't pretend that what you describe is an acceptable level of service. But unless it's something you're passionate enough about to take up with the airline, who will inevitable direct you to their handling agent, who will then pass you onto the airport or even back to the airline, you may just be best to take it on the chin and move on.

[QUOTE=olster;10901499]Ahead of schedule currently routing direct to the final approach crowed the captain of the inbound flight to Edinburgh this evening. More verbiage about how early we were as we arrived on stand. 55 minutes later we were finally released and we listened to a litany of excuses. Apparently due to I kid you not, covid of course, there was only one set of steps @ Edinburgh and these were nowhere to be found. The lad behind me mildly enquired and complained to the senior cabin crew and was barked at in return ‘to not take his frustration out on the staff’. Very precious and unjustified. Having enjoyed a packet of crisps and a bottle of water as our in flight ‘refreshment’ I can only say that the former national carrier is a national embarrassment. Yes I know times are tough

First world problems hey?

One of those things, it happens unfortunately. I see nothing wrong with the flight crew announcing you were arriving ahead of schedule, a bag of crisps and a water on such a short flight is more complimentary than you’d have ever got pre-Covid and if the senior crew member sniped, I’d hazard a guess the lads enquiry was a little more than just “mild”.

Another thing to take into consideration is that the handling agents are almost certainly running on reduced manpower and where busy serving another aircraft at that time considering you where early.
As to the crew announcing things too often,it was probably to keep everyone seated. If there where no announcements people would have been complaining of being kept in the dark.

BA mainline ''shuttle'' into EDI... (I am assuming here it was from LHR?)

Firstly I would have thought the Legacy London flight would have been put on a Jetty.
EDI is hardly busy these days surely?

Second even though ground handling in the main today is outsourced a delay of 55 minutes for a set of steps is beyond pathetic - There is hardly any excuse for this unless the whole ramp crew suddenly died or they all tested positive for Covid -19!
EDI is not some tiny little Greek island airport - one set of steps LOL
Doesn't matter what you paid for your ticket or if you used Avios,
Flight time is not much more than 55 mins - then a 55 mins wait to get off! Unacceptable, and I would have expected the Station Manager wanting to know why and without tea or any biscuits offered to the GH boss.

Obsequious Self congratulating PA's by the FD and/or the CC always make my stomach churn. Just be honest with the Pax - Yes this event was not the Crews' fault but the skipper surely
could have offered a better response to the cabin?

Of course we have no aircraft types today with built in airstairs - Back in the day we had DC-9 1-11 and 727 and even the old BEA Vanguard, all capable of basically being self handled
The Tridents although, needed all the kit to get off the plane if no Jetty.

Another EDI shambles here as passengers rush to exit an Easyjet flight on Thursday. https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news...crush-19080890

Thanks Rog747, you get it. I am aware that compared to the rest of the world issues this is not top of the pile. This is not a ‘first world problem’ but it is still an unacceptable level of service from the former world favourite. Also to blame covid for one set of steps is Alice in wonderland stuff. My point would be that the Walsh / Cruz combo have reduced a famous airline to a husk of its former self. This is an aviation forum and I am just relating my experience. I am too lazy to complain officially so I am venting here. And on reflection this morning, the customer behind me,a jovial Scottish lad did nothing to warrant being barked at. Taking offence now the default position in modern society.

Sadly last time I looked it's mostly down to what 4468 says ^^...

The days when BA to threw cash at a problem to solve it have long gone; a year or more back they wouldn't do it, now with cashflow as it is my guess is they feel they can't do it.

I can't speak for EDI itself but that line of thought has meant the demise at many station of the likes of the dedicated BA uniformed/badged station manager rog747 describes, many of whom took pride in ensuring "their" station performed as well as possible and certainly would be straight onto the GH if their flight was delayed inbound and/or outbound.

As for the PA's...I'm fully in alignment with those that hate self congratulatory PA's (and I was always aware you were holding yourself hostage to fortune if you started predicting an early arrival too soon) but the teaching at BA certainly was that in unusual situations the passengers need to hear something from the front end on a frequent basis, even if the something was "I have no news of an improvement in our situation". :ooh:

Just because it happened at EDI doesn't make it an "EDI shambles". It's hardly Edinburgh Airports fault this happened and probably happens on many flights around the world every day. It's more an "EZY shambles" if the crew weren't proactive in getting people to remain seated.

With regards to the original complaint, it would be interesting to know if any other flights at EDI at the time were delayed. I can imagine handlers are on skeleton staff to enable social distancing within crew rooms etc. If they were stuck on another delayed aircraft, it's a perfectly logical explanation (which in normal times would still happen but be totally unacceptable, but in current times may well be a more common occurance)

Shame on you airline people posting above telling pax it’s not the airline’s fault, blame the handling agent. Who appoints and (hopefully) monitors the handling agent? That would be the airline. Average passenger doesn’t draw a distinction between the airline and the handling agent and airlines by and large understand that. I used to travel a lot through EDI, but haven’t since March and the place used to be a shambles because it was too busy. Now it sounds like a shambles because it’s too quiet.

the Walsh / Cruz combo have reduced a famous airline to a husk of its former self.
The 'shambles' started way before that - when 'gottle 'o geer' and his 'vent' decided to outsource everything in sight and handed over to their aptly named successor to continue the slide. The arrival of the gabby Irishman and the British enthusiasm for anything cheap and nasty ensured that the 'drift' became a race to the bottom. Ultimately the customer dictates the quality - given that such is placed above price.
'Cost of everything, value of nothing' mentality?