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RevMan Plan
24th Feb 2005, 17:43
Was reported on the BA News Intranet that BA has been "proactively" cancelling flights due to snowy weather today (Thursday).
Having spent the day at Waterside I couldn't help but notice the steady streams of aircraft landing on 09L and the lack of snow (ok had a bit of sleet in the morning).

Rumour has it that BA Operations are cancelling flights under the pretence of "adverse weather conditions" so that they can avoid paying passengers the new EU compensation, when in fact the reason for cancelling the flight is lack of crew.

Anyone in compass centre care to shed any light?

If it is true flights were canx due to weather than is this not a dangerous game for BA to pay?

Are there any passengers who turned up at the airport for a flight that was cancelled due to weather, reading this forum

PapaRomeo
24th Feb 2005, 18:18
Ever thought that the cancellations might have been due to the snow at destination airports rather than LHR as a lot of the country has had snow, as has a lot of mainland europe! I believe all paris airports were closed this morning for a start!

Thunderbug
24th Feb 2005, 18:28
The Met man screwed up.

The forecast was for some really heavy showers. All crew got a message saying that ops were working on a de-icing rate of 12 per hour at LHR. This would have led to some serious delays. As de-icing at LHR is done on stand there would have been further knock on delays as aircraft waited for vacant stands at the terminal.

I think BA was for once being proactive and trying to get ahead of the game. All the crew turned up - the snow didn't.

As for compensation - we leave that to the bean counters in Waterworld. ;)

T'bug

Jerricho
24th Feb 2005, 19:25
The Met man screwed up

Yeah, and that has never happened before. :rolleyes:

sixmilehighclub
24th Feb 2005, 19:47
Having spent the day at Waterside

A whole one? In Waterside? I assume you are a BA employee?
Were you working or just spending most of the time counting planes so you have a reason to slate your own company on pprune?

You should know better than to feed the media. But then I'm guessing you never have to face the public in person so can stir things up as much as you like and let someone on a quarter of your salary deal with their anger.

Thanks :ok:

bealine
25th Feb 2005, 15:56
This "proactive" approach is a case of "Damned if you do, damned if you don't". Anyone remember last year's fiasco when Gatwick's snowplough's door locks were frozen solid and Heathrow couldn't get de-icers around quickly enough???

Anyway, we bashed this story around on Flyertalk here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=404399

ShamRoc
25th Feb 2005, 16:59
Well, I dont think it was snowing at Nairobi! The BA065 was cancelled yesterday "due to snow at Heathrow". Funny that as lots of other flights departed and arrived in the sdame timeframe.
Incidentially, I noticed a significant number of BA flights from LHR were cancelled today.

TheOddOne
26th Feb 2005, 00:23
Anyone remember last year's fiasco when Gatwick's snowplough's door locks were frozen solid

bealine,

Well! I've just got to bite! Our snowploughs don't have any door locks! We done pretty good at LGW considering last year, if you mean the 28/29 Jan ice storm.

Anyhow, back to this year, both BA and us reacted to the same forecast and got caught out. I waited all night for the temp to fall below zero bearing in mind the whole airfield was completely soaked and bottled out at 0400 and put down 18,000 lit of ant-icing fluid as the forecast said -2C. In the event it never went below +0.5C. If we hadn't treated and the temp had fallen another degree, we'd have been closed big-time so it's a small enough price to pay I guess. Ho hum, better safe than sorry.

Of course at those temps BA were doing a/c ant-icing anyway so it was probably best to make sure you were going to offer a reliable service to the number of flights you know you can cope with, rather than take a chance and screw up the whole programme.

So, it's 0130 Sat am, temp just fallen below zero, waiting for the front from the North, Met lady doesn't know if it's going to reach us before the temp goes up again or not. To ant-ice or not ant-ice, that is the question! Heads you win, tails I lose...

Cheers,
TheOddOne

bealine
26th Feb 2005, 08:04
Okay, The Odd One, my apologies! The story about the frozen door locks was the rumour doing the rounds and even the press bought it (although Heathrow's debacle proved more entertaining!)

So, if the snowplough locks weren't frozen last year, do you know the real reason the runway wasn't treated and had to be closed at peak traffic time?

Rollingthunder
26th Feb 2005, 10:19
I'm sorry, Perhaps I've misunderstood. You put down de-icing fluid on the runways?

For door locks - try isopropyl alcohol.

RevMan Plan
26th Feb 2005, 17:38
Sixmilehighclub:
I use to work as cabin crew so have in the past come face to face with our customers.

My point in this is that someone in Compass Centre is making decisions to cancel flights due to lack of cabin crew and then hiding behind the 'adverse weather' heading to save BA money.

Bottom line in this is that colleagues like yourself have customers venting their anger at you (what do you mean my flights cancelled due to snow - its raining outside!?!) and then there are people (who actually do work) in the commercial part of the business trying to get customers through the door and fly BA.

My point in all this is that lets not hide behind the weather and deal with the real issue; that is crew shortage due to poor manpower planning.

We've also cancelled a number of flights over the weekend again due to crew shortage.

bealine
26th Feb 2005, 20:16
RevManPlan - I don't know what you're hoping to achieve with your postings?

....A negative press report in the Sunday papers perhaps?

....A nosedive in our share price come Monday morning?

....Thoroughly pi55ed off customers whose business meetings or family reunions were disrupted?

Yes - a few flights were cancelled due (allegedly) to crew shortage, but most have been for strategic weather planning - the forecast was, after all, pretty abysmal!

As far as the crewing shortage is concerned, no one has yet told anyone why officially. Crew sickness has allegedly improved to such an extent that their managers are positively beaming!

The only reason we can surmise is this harkback to Nationalised Industry days where leave is taken en-masse in February and March because you lose any untaken days on April 1st! However, I must stress that this is only rumour and conjecture and we await our learned management's official statement!

TheOddOne
26th Feb 2005, 21:55
bealine,

So, if the snowplough locks weren't frozen last year, do you know the real reason the runway wasn't treated and had to be closed at peak traffic time?

Well, yes, I do! The temp on the afternoon of 28 Jan 04 was about +7C and a band of very intense rain followed by snow started falling at around 1800. The rain washed away any treatment that had been put down and the snow was mostly melting on contact. My colleague managed to get all the big brushes onto the runway and swept back to black, then treated with de-icing fluid, which frankly saved our operation at LGW for the next 24 hours, for a 90 min closure. I still quote his prompt action as model of the right action to take under pressure. Other airports that tried to spread all their resources evenly around runway, taxiways & stands were essentially closed for 24 hours.

The sky cleared after the storm and the temp fell about 8 deg in about 45 mins, which is quite unprecedented. I came in and spent the rest of the night trying to cope with the sheet of ice that covered the airfield (apart from the runway!) very unpleasant, not only as temps fell to -6 or -7 but with the 40kt NW wind the chill factor was about -20. We've learned a lot of lessons from that night and have invested over £700,000 in new equipment which has made our job a lot easier this year. We ant-ice in anticipation of freezing conditions and are better able to treat ice should it form. We've got a deal with our biggest operator for mass clearance of stands so that we can treat them properly.

I'm not saying we'll always get it right or that we won't be beaten by the conditions in the future but I do think we do as well as any airport in the UK and probably the near continent, too. I still look to places like Stuttgart and Geneva as role models but they do invest a lot more than we do.

Cheers,
TheOddOne

Rollingthunder

You put down de-icing fluid on the runways?

Oh yes! This is our preferred treatment in SE England where we get wet snow or rain on an only slightly sub-zero surface. We use environmentally-friendly potassium acetate (trade name Clearway) to supress the freezing point, in place of the ethelyne glycol (Konsin) that is an ecological nightmare.

Actually our main runway at LGW is quite heavily domed and is fully grooved and drains fantastically well, so often treatment is un-necessary. It\'s the taxiways & stands we have trouble with.

The time we had -12 deg C and snow on a dry surface was a dream come true - simply brush and blow it away, back to a dry surface again. Only happened once to me in 20+ years. This was the same lovely stuff that was the \'wrong kind of snow\' for our train operators, great for me, though!

TOO

Gouabafla
1st Mar 2005, 16:07
TheOddOne

A big thank you to you and everyone like you.

Like lots of the pax on this forum, I've flown out lf LHR and LGW in all sorts of weathers. I've been delayed because of snow and fog and had to wait while the aircraft was de-iced. But, the number of take offs still equals the number of landings and whatever the weather, I've got to and from wherever I was going safely.

No, I don't like sitting around at Heathrow T1 waiting for hours for a flight that has been delayed because of fog or snow. But I still prefer being late to being dead.

Folks can grumble all they like (and at times I do) but the proffessionalism shown by the folks in the airline industry is superb.

Kudos guys, from a happy piece of SLF.

dakar
5th Mar 2005, 09:51
All

I find it amazing that this thread had been opened by one of BA's own? I agree with Bealine what would you hope to achieve?, you obviously have too much time on your hands at Waterworld.

My understanding of the events by reading the replies, is that BA in an unprecedented approach decided to proactively cancel in advance. The weather men last Thursday were predicting doom and gloom with the press advising not to undertake any non essential travel and to stay at home. With this in mind and BA ability to de-ice their operation, I for one can understand why they took this proactive approach, albeit the forcasters were 24hours to early.

The other interesting view of this, having suffered a cancellation after being boarded to be told the flight was cancelled was, I'm sure, to inform as many of us passengers as early as possible. Personally, having signed up for BA text message alert system I would have prefered to know in advance rather than check-in and waive goodbye to my bags down to the depths of the baggage hall, never to be seen again, or at least for a few days.

With, regards to the shortage of crew, I find it fustrating if this is happening after all the events of last summers problems in the terminals. However, it also appears that crews were also being notified of disruption in advance, I wonder how many crews would have planned to commute in on that Thursday morning, of those I wonder how many failed to show?

This for BA was a no winner for them. good to see them being procative, unfortunate weather didn't happen. Will be interested to see if they do it again.



Dakar.:ok:

ManAtTheBack
10th Mar 2005, 16:56
3rd March

London Heathrow to Amsterdam, either "snow" or "fog"

BA operated 2 out of 7 flights, 1st at 16.10.
bmi operate 6 out of 8, 1st at 10.50.

Cannot comment on the reason for the difference but interesting nonetheless.