BA had to pay £14M to BAA to install a door close to the Concorde Room so first class passengers could bypass the shops. I'm sure we all have our own ideas of how much of that £14M went on building the door and how much was compensation for lost revenue in the shops.

I've enjoyed BA service on the Atlantic routes and never had anything especially good or bad happen to me at LHR, I always felt that the presence of the shops at the airport rather negated half the purpose of visiting London anyway since a lot of the "signature' British stuff is available at LHR.

However, I've now decided that I will avoid LHR in future, probably by going to Zurich and then train or car onwards.

That typifies the BA experience at LHR, sadly. I'm usually the one on the PA apologising and promising that we are 'chasing it up' :sad:

Strange, isn't it? I use many airlines and put BA (and Quaintarse) among the best for cabin service. Shame that the same sort of professionalism isn't exhibited by BA's management.

Slightly off topic but an amusing indication that the world of the Top Table continues unabated:

Channel 4 doubles chief executive's salary, despite posting losses

By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Thursday, 24 April 2008

Channel 4's chief executive, Andy Duncan, saw his pay double in 2007 to £1.2m, even though the channel is pleading for a £150m public subsidy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/me...es-814755.html

There you have it. That's the problem. It's not just BA, Open Skies and T5. They are simply signs of a much deeper malaise. It's the "stuff yer gullet" culture of the so-called executives everywhere. Bonuses, bonuses, bonuses bigger than their salaries.

The banks have all been caught by their own folly and now expect us to pay through the nose to refill their coffers. Never again will I listen to a bank manager lecturing me about financial probity.

It really is time to blow the whistle on the lot of them and make them hand back the bonuses to the share-holders and tax-payers. I'm no socialist but this sort of stuff really does raise the hackles.

BAA's Contempt for Passengers
 

I'm lucky in that I am not a business traveller and have a wider choice of what airport I use. BAA's idea of herding everyone through their absurd shopping mall shows a fundamental contempt for the users of T5. This contempt is seperate from from the operational cock up in that it was planned at an early stage and is therefore deliberate.

When I want to go shopping I go to Tesco. If I ever want a £1,000 handbag I'll go to Harrods. I don't mind flying with BA but not if I am required to jump through BAA's hoops to get to them. A lot of PPRuNe posters have said that they are avoiding LHR as they avoid the plague and this must be having an impact on BA's profits. If BA cannot sort this out they are going to be taken down by other hungrier airlines. Until then it's a case of "sorry you don't sell want I want to buy".

BA's Contempt for Passengers
 

Not that bothered by the shops - if I don't want to buy I don't have to. However, airlines are meant to get people from A to B and hopefully the good ones treat their passengers with a bit of repect.

Last night the BA1338 from LHR to NCL due out at 20.50 was delayed until 22.30. Pax were told regularly that the reason was the late arrival of BA363 from Lyon, and once this arrived it would do the outbound BA1338.

BA363 arrived at a21.25 and at about 22.00 BA1338 popped up on the BA website as canx - at this time pax in the lounges had not been told.

I know a number of Gold/Silver cards for which this is the last straw and who will never set foot on a BA aircraft again - more gains for KLM/AF and National Express East Coast.

Agree.

In a way it would be a blessed relief if BA abandoned its domestic operations entirely and stopped pretending it was interested in regional pax.

The service it provides on the ground at regional airports is no better than its competitors now that they share the same ground handling companies, they continue to lose people's bags (even putting the T5 problems to one side), and their flights are routinely late or cancelled when some other part of the BA operation has a problem.

I was at a travel fair earlier in the week including many major airlines. There were a lot of very grumpy customers surrounding the BA stand, to the extent that I felt quite sorry for the staff who had to stand there all day and defend the company. They looked absolutely shattered. Meanwhile the people on the AF/KLM stand, and the Star Alliance one, looked positively buoyant.

The lady on the BA stand I spoke to was very sympathetic about how BA is treating its regional pax, but I'm afraid sympathy doesn't cut it any more.

I'm a silver card holder but I'm afraid some free drinks and a comfortable seat in a lounge doesn't compensate for routinely late or cancelled flights and lost luggage.

13Alpha

Six of one...
 

I am based in Manchester and travel with one of the three alliances on a weekly basis at least. I am writing this because as I got T5'ed last night after several incident free (but at times comedy) trips through BAA's new greenhouse. I got stuck in an automated check-in nightmare and missed the last flight. It was a pain but BA put me on a BMI alternative without any drama. I was in Paris recently and my flight went tech. Air France found another plane and we got in 90 minutes late - a great performance.

I have a list of delays, cancellations and nightmares (Moscow once took 24 hours with KLM via AMS and CDG) for all the carriers. My conclusion - living in a region sucks and this will get worse as MAN goes loco.

On thread
 

This thread is about the quality of BA management, lets stay on thread. Certainly with the rash of BA pilots hitting the front pages of the nationals this weekend I think the airline has lost the plot. BA management have lost the respect of one of the most important staff groups, the pilots. I think it's time BA face up to the incompetence, big change ahead at the worlds worst airline!

I note that "BAManager" has submitted a total of 23 posts, all knocking BA & its management and not one on any other subject. He also misidentified the BA pilot referred to in another thread. Readers beware as I suspect that the moderators' warning that writers may not be who they claim rings bells in this case.

No better, no worse
 

I believe that I was sticking to the sentiment of the thread. As far as I am concerned BA's service is no better or worse than the other carriers where you had to make a connection. On board, on long haul at least, it is generally better but that is very much a matter of personal taste. From my perspective the mistake that BA management have made is retrenching from the regions as that makes BA much the same as AF, LH, KLM... (maybe I just don't get the OpenSkies thing)

When they do get T5 working with very short connections they may have something that differentiates them. My God, is that the plan after all? Personally I would be so much happier if they replaced the MAN to LHR bit with a 2 hour train service. Now that would be differentiation but I am going off topic again.

Some scathing words from Michael Winner in today's Sunday Times:

"The most stupid statement I ever heard came from Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways. A day before Heathrow’s fiasco opened he stood there on TV and announced terminal 5 would be up and running smoothly from day one and no British Airways customers would ever have more than two people in front of them at the check-in desk.

We know Wee Willie is small, but his brain is obviously diminutive even in relation to his body. What a ridiculous statement to make. Any new venture may well go wrong – although Willie provided magnified meaning to the word “wrong”. And there’s no need to fantasise about how few people will be in front of you at the check-in desk.

The rest is history. Confusion beyond belief. Tens of thousands of lost bags sent to Italy and America for sorting out. Hundreds of BA planes cancelled. Enraged customers. A total catastrophe. Whereupon Wee Willie aka Silly Willie aka Willie Wonka (I misspelt that last word) says, “I’m sorry. The buck stops with me. I take full responsibility.” Then he sacks two of his key executives. So the buck stopped not with Silly Willie, but somewhere down the line.

Polls in The Daily Telegraph and the Evening Standard showed a large majority of readers wanted him to resign, as did the British Airline Pilots’ Association and any sensible person on the planet. But Willie stays on. Why should he give up a highly salaried job just because he’s inept?

Compare that to the chairman of HM Revenue & Customs, Paul Gray, who resigned because a twit employee in Tyne & Wear sent out discs containing people’s personal information. Paul’s a man of honour. Willie stays because, in my view, honour is not his strong card.

As for the nonsense, “No BA passenger will ever have more than two people in front of them at the check-in desk”, I went down last Saturday, 25 days after terminal 5 opened. There were many desks with more than two people in the queue. I’m photographed, at 2.30pm on a quiet day for travellers, standing behind 11 BA customers queuing at check-in B7. You can’t see them all, but, I promise you, there were 11.

When Willie Wonka became BA’s chief executive on October 1, 2005, the company’s shares stood at £3. Last Friday they’d sunk to £2.21. That he remains in the job is beyond belief."

Great post BEagle. I used T5 as SLF a week ago. three canx flights and no bags at the end of it. Three days later, returned with new bags and new contents. Only one flight canx, second flight three hours late. No bags.

Incredible. I shall move heaven and earth never to have anything to do with BA or LHR again unless it is prohibitively costly.

I don't often agree with Winner but on this occasion he is spot on.

Dont Blame Him!
 

I dont think we can blame Kirkwood, he was instructed to read from a statement and not to answer and questions he just did what he was told, he wanted to face the questions but was instructed from higher (ww) not to.
WW had to point the finger at someone:rolleyes: and he has done it with two of his top guys, how sad and what a waste of so many years experience between them. It NOT just two people fault but a whole team of them so why should they take the blame?:oh: its a cowards way out for WW, he should have stood up for his team and said "fire me and not Kirkwood and Noyes"...but he didnt. tut tut.:=
Kirkwood does not deserve to be victimised in this way...i wish him good luck for the future. ;)

Hmm, but Kirkwood has been totally involved in all of the BA strategic decision making, including T5. Ergo he is complicit. In any case, I am quite sure he would not be going so quietly unless his payoff had been agreed at the usual SIT rates. I wonder how much longer Willie W@nka has got?

(SIT = Snout in Trough)

Came through T5 this morning and have to advise Willie that he is grossly misinformed, there are no check-in desks at all.

There's Fast Bag Drop (haha), there's Visa Check, there's Assistance, there's Customer Service (which everyone else would call ticketing) but not one check-in desk.

There are lots of check-in machines. These take as identity locator reference, machine-readable passport or credit card. They don't of course read Russian passports, they don't of course read read Russian credit cards. The locator code is buried down in the text of BA tickets issues in Russia (if I didn't know the format I would have been screwed too). My Russian fellow traveller would have been sunk without me there. There is no Russian language option, despite 4 flights a day to Russia.

Spoke to the agent on duty at the machines (had to approach her as she viewed our confusion from a distance) and was told "probably" customer service could help. This despite the fact we are standing in front of the machine holding a ticket with the locator printed on it.

On to Fast Bag Drop. This should be a 10-second operation, surely ? One desk was into a phone call, another was scrutinising passports for something, a third was reallocating seats, presumably after a machine had not allocated the desired ones ! Excuse me, but this is nothing to do with dropping bags, fast or not.

Does nobody at BA have a CLUE about how to go about systems design anywhere in the organisation.

Nope....welcome to BA.....Sadly, the Board seem more intent sorting out free confirmed First Class travel for themselves and their families than sorting out the companies problems. easier to sit tight and hope it all turns out ok in the end.

File on 4 : A Terminal Failure
 

Highly automated systems + a wide variety of passenger variability = failure.

For example - and not BA or T5 - paid extra for the legroom of an emergency row exit seat (Virgin) - stand in queue for automated check in........and the machine rejects me and tells me to visit customer service, where I find that they need to check I'm not totally incapacitated if I'm sitting in that seat.

...Or the time I checked in and in front of me was a family of four (incl. two babies) returning home from a bicycle tour, complete with bikes, bike trailers, luggage, baby gear et al. Took the poor girl half an hour.

...or the time at CDG where there was a 100m queue of undocumented Africans trying to get on a flight to Britain.

Minor problems really, but now repeat that experience in Hungarian, Swahili, Mandarin, etc.

There is no substitute for plenty of experienced and helpful staff, but narcissistic management (being unable to empathise with anything or anyone) don't understand much of the human experience at all, and what they do see, they don't like. So they treat their staff as a cost of doing business.

To put it another way, from the ruthless "de - staffing" that appears to be apparent in T5, it's pretty obvious that BA management, from the Board down, see their staff as a liability, NOT an asset of the business.

Wheres the proof
 

As is usual on the PPRUNE forum the BA trolls will request proof beyond reasonable doubt the BA treat their staff as a liability........Where is it SUNFISH, your experience counts for nothing!!!!! Wouldn't it be nice if someone had that illusive proof........Just a thought........................

Now things are getting really serious!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/mai...04/cnt5104.xml

Just to add.................

Here in MAN BA seem to have a strange way of handling customers bags.

Most of our shuttle services are operated by A319 recently these aircraft have become containerised only, this is because T5 is a container only terminal so Aviance here have been told.

Hence when the 4 containers are full, any extra baggage is to be rushed onto the next A/C, as there is no facility for bulk.

In the last few days i have seen in excess of 30 bags being dumped because of this ludicrous practice.............not only does it inconvenience the punter it must be costing a fortune to rush it on to the destination.

Does this happen at all shuttle stations in the U.K.?

ZFW

Just to add.................

Here in MAN BA seem to have a strange way of handling customers bags.

Most of our shuttle services are operated by A319 recently these aircraft have become containerised only, this is because T5 is a container only terminal so Aviance here have been told.

Hence when the 4 containers are full, any extra baggage is to be rushed onto the next A/C, as there is no facility for bulk.

In the last few days i have seen in excess of 30 bags being dumped because of this ludicrous practice.............not only does it inconvenience the punter it must be costing a fortune to rush it on to the destination.

Does this happen at all shuttle stations in the U.K.?

ZFW

So no facility to load H5 baggage ???

And more to the point.......


Only 4 AKHs on an A319 !!!

After reading the Telegraph article Bill of the Hamptons posted, the proximate cause of this T5 mess is now obvious.

BAA built a shopping mall disguised as an airport terminal - and produced a result that is a failure in both roles.

Why didn't BA see this coming? It's an old business axiom that you cannot be all things to all men - you need to focus on your core business and discard the rest. That's why the fashionable business conglomerates were such a failure in the 1970's.

BAA cannot run shopping malls and airports at the same time because over time, resources and energy are going to be focussed on the "wrong" projects.

Can someone confrim that BA are operting a system described above where the aircraft pallets are not capable of lifting a standard load of passenger bags due to the complete inability of the shiny new palatial mall at Heathrow to deal with loose bags.....IS THIS FOR REAL ? If this is the case I would like confirmation because this will be BA and I parting company for good.

Yes only 4. But there is room for a half sized extra one at the back.
Finnair and Swissair have these on their A319. Not very big but better than leaving bags behind.

Amongst BA staff this was always an issue that had been anticipated when the A319 orders were placed and a large A320 order was canx. At the time we were responding to the anticipated downturn in traffic. The limitations of this aircrafts effect far more routes than just the shuttle. However, it might well be that another downturn in traffic is about to take place any day soon. Containerising the aircraft was mandatory for the move to T5 and is also a preference at many EU airports.

According to Sky news WW is up before a government panel today for a grilling on the recent troubles ie baggage and the countless other little matters of late.

Looking for a "new" Willie
 

In todays Observer.

BA lines up successor for Walsh

Headhunters asked to find potential replacement

* Tim Webb, industrial editor
* The Observer,
* Sunday May 11 2008
* Article history

About this article
Close
This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 11 2008 on p1 of the Business news & features section. It was last updated at 00:06 on May 11 2008.

British airways has appointed leading headhunter Whitehead Mann to find a possible successor for under-fire boss Willie Walsh. The airline has mandated the firm to fill the position of chief operations officer, newly created in the wake of the Terminal 5 fiasco.

But BA, which is expected to issue a profits warning when it announces full-year results this week, has told Whitehead Mann to recruit someone who could be considered as a candidate to succeed Walsh.

Carol Leonard, a partner at Whitehead Mann, confirmed that BA had appointed the firm in the past three weeks. 'BA hopes that this person could join the board in one or two years and be considered as a potential successor [to Walsh]. This person has got to prove themselves as a contender to take over.'

She said their first priority was to find a chief operating officer and that any succession would take place in 'five years plus'. But asked whether this would remain the case if the problems at Terminal 5 continued and the new recruit impressed the BA board, she declined to comment.

In a statement, BA said this weekend: 'The process of appointing a chief operating officer is ongoing and we are using a variety of ways to find the best candidate. We are looking for a person who has a wide range of operational experience and customer service knowledge. They must be at a very senior level already within their organisation and have proven leadership skills. The person will report directly to Willie Walsh and have in excess of 20,000 people in their department.'

The news that BA is looking for someone to be groomed as a possible successor to Walsh is likely to increase the pressure on the former pilot.

One day after the shambolic opening of Terminal 5, when asked if he would resign, he told a reporter that the 'buck stops with me'.

Two weeks later BA announced that David Noyes, director of customer service, as well as Gareth Kirkwood, director of operations, were leaving the company. The new chief operations officer will replace them.

This week shareholders are also bracing themselves for disappointment over BA's dividend plans. BA has not paid a dividend since 2001 but last summer said it would have a dividend policy in place by the end of March 2008.

Richard Marwood, of Axa Investment Managers, a top 10 BA shareholder, said: 'It would be disappointing if they didn't pay a final - dividends are very important - but not entirely surprising given the pressure they are under with the current fuel costs.'

Most attention at Friday's results will be on the airline's guidance for the current year. Collins Stewart estimates earnings this year of just £350m, compared with a £819m forecast for the year just ended.

Analysts also warn that this year operating margins could be as low as 3 per cent because of surging fuel costs, against last year's target of 10 per cent. Joe Gill from Goodbody Stockbrokers said: 'Airlines are in a worse situation than after the terrorist attacks of 11 September.'

Realise I might get a flaming over this but they could do worse than to try and get Rod back over.

Why would Rod want to come back?

With his excellent pension, free firm First Class travel for life, I am sure he is very happy where he is.

They could start a little club. Bob and Rod as founder members with application form in the post for Willie......

A non story really.

Discussed already. No one useful will want the position while the Chairman remains the Chairman.

The fish rots.........

What's wrong with the Willy they've got?
 

Nothing that a dose of Viagra wouldn't fix surely?

The perfect team:

Chairman - Sir Alan Sugar (would take absolutely no crap whether it be from BAA or his favourite British newspaper - The Daily Mail!:ok:)

CEO - Jeremy Clarkson (The most straigh-forward talking man in the country. Gets the job done and a huge patriot. He wouldn't let BA down!)

COO - Roy Hodgson (Getting Fulham Football Club out of that !!!!!hole was a stroke of genius - next step - get T5 sorted!)

Three men who would make BA and T5 the best people to be with!:ok:

Jeremy is not that daft! This is the most poisoned of any chalices yet offered.

However, Sir Alan would be a great move - I can imagine him talking to manager after manager:
"You're Fired"!

Think of the charisma boost, the publicity boost, the ability boost. Problem would be the challenge, which he probably doesn't need, and if risk assessed properly would be a no-brainer to turn down.