BA Connect Cancellations at BHX

[BrummyGit]

Other than the fact that they no longer care about BA Connect customers because they soon won't have the routes any more, does anyone know the reasons for so many cancellations at BHX. BA1741 to Stuttgart was cancelled 13th & 14th Feb and then I find this on the web site http://www.britishairways.com/travel/flightops/public/en_gb?p_faqid=2521

They have really been annoying the regulars on these routes (I mainly travel to Stuttgart) recently as cancellations have been very frequent since about November but gradually increasing.

To cap it all, so far BA have rejected our compensation claims stating that a "technical fault" with the aircraft which caused the cancellations is a matter out of their control and therefore not liable for compensation - utter rubbish as it's down to maintenance and spare aircraft provision. If indeed it really is a technical fault rather than a commercial issue.

[Mr Angry from Purley]

Brummygit
Connect are loosing Flight Crew by the dozen due to the proposed merger with FlyBe. I suspect this may be the cause :\

[BrummyGit]

That sounds quite likely - it's a shame as FlyBe will have no customers left the way BA Connect has been running for the last few months.

Steve

[Single Spey]

Edgehill

Please pass your message around your colleagues. I personally am not impressed when the BA ground staff insist on everyone having their passports open at the photo page when boarding - I pay you to open my passport. Happened yesterday when boarding a Brussels flight - on the return there was no such insistence from the SN Brussels staff.

Secondly - Arriving back at BHX aircraft was directed to a parking stand with an unserviceable docking system - probably not your problem but does make me wonder why I pay so much to the airport that they do such stupid things. As if that wasn't enough in delaying the arrival, once parked up we had to wait as to quote the captain ' the ground staff were particulalry slow at turning up to position the airbridge'. Are these some more of your BA colleages?

Fully sympathise with your predicament - however not impressed with some aspects of the service.

[ATNotts]

Single Spey.

Is it really too much to ask to open your passport at the photo-page - it obvioulsy makes boarding quicker, and will help in achieving on-time departure! That benefits not only you, but the rest of the passengers.

As for airbridges - if you think BHX is bad, try Stansted - or, as an Air Berlin pilot told his passengers (german only) on one occasion "welcome to old Europe".

[TheGorrilla]

Single Spey - get a life you whinger. If all you've got to moan about is someone not opening YOUR passport for you at the correct page life really aint that bad!

[Single Spey]

ATNotts

What concerns me is that this is surely the thin end of the wedge. They'll be asking us to do our own check-ins next and one day no doubt we'll have to print out our own boarding passes to save the airline paper, printing and ink costs.....

Gorilla

That wasn't ALL I was commenting on....

[agent x]

Single Spey are you for real?! Simple answer, if SN are so perfect fly with them, not BA. Better still don't fly at all. Good lord! Can't open your own damn passport?!! Reeks of 'Dont You Know Who I am?' OH..but then..on your apex return company bought route deal you do pay the wages dont you?!:ugh:

[Single Spey]

agent x

This WAS a flight with SN - just that the difference in 'service' between the SN staff at the gate at Brussels was markedly different to that from the BA staff at BHX. Go figure!

[BrummyGit]

Edgehill

Please don't take my comments as being directed towards the frontline BA staff who I think are keeping a very positive attitude with what is going on in the background. I am frustrated with BA (Connect??) and it's management team who obviously don't give a damn about BA Connect any more.

We went from the previous BA brand to BA Connect where the prices increased (my employer now pays more for my cattle class trips than we used to pay for Club) and yet the frills were withdrawn at the same time.

In the last 4 months reliability has been very poor (cancellation after cancellation) and recently I was in Stuttgart and received a text from BA cancelling my return to BHX the next morning. I called all the numbers included in the text straight away and all were closed for the night, and there was nothing on the website to help either, yet we knew there was an earlier flight we could possibly get - just one person manning a phone overnight would be a bonus when you are miles from home and worrying about how you get back for the weekend. Another colleague was just dumped at Heathrow after the BHX flight left without any call for the flight in the BA lounge for the flight (their luggage was taken though:= ). The 5 or 6 pax who were put on the LHR flight were just dumped and not offered any help getting from LHR to BHX. BA just don't want to know about customer service any more.

It used to be a pleasure and preference to fly BA - not any more, it's a last resort. I've never flown with FlyBe (I'm booked with them next week), but I really hope that they know what they are getting into and that they can turn things around.

I really feel for the staff who must be getting a hard time from a lot of regular PAX.

I do have to agree about the ground crews at BHX recently - a number of flights have arrived and we've had to wait 5-10mins for a gate or a member of staff to point the way. It must have been a surprise that we had arrived. For the pax this is quite frustrating.

[BrummyGit]

Edgehill

Thanks for you comments.

I am very sympathetic to your situation which is made worse by managerial decisions. Sadly as a customer, the switch to no frills was just a disaster where paying significantly more for much less just feels like an insult from BA. Where managerial decisions also result in insufficient staff being available to meet aircraft etc, this just fuels customer frustration which then influences their reactions to you and other frontline staff. It then turns into a viscious circle - less pax = less staff = poorer service and so on.

To cap it all the reduction in reliability is driving customers away. The company I work for has people flying in and out of BHX every day of the working week and we have gone from using BA by preference to using BA as a last resort. Indeed our German colleagues decided to avoid BA and use indirect Lufthansa routing about a year ago.

We submitted a compensation claim recently when our flight was cancelled on arrival at BHX and the re-routing couldn't get us to our destination in time to make our day trip viable. We complied with all the EU conditions for compensation but BA refused our claim stating that the cancellation was due to a technical/safety fault with the aircraft and therefore matters beyond their control were not covered by the EU regulations - this is utter rubbish as maintenance and standby aircraft are well within BA's control and we know they have a standby BAe146 which we have transferred onto when the usual Embraer is faulty (again!!!). So this just smacks of a "get stuffed" attitude from BA management and we have referred the claim to the Air Users Transport Council.

All in all BA seem to have lost their way in customer service which used to be one of their key selling points. I used to be confident that if I was stranded in a foreign city due to a flight cancellation BA would pull out all stops to get me home or put me in a hotel - now I reckon I would be abandoned just like a Ryanair customer.

I truely hope that FlyBe (an airline I have no experience of to date) turn things around very quickly from a managerial point of view and give the staff and passengers a chance to feel good about things again.

Single Spey

If having to open your passport to help the staff get you on your flight quickly and smoothly is your only worry in life I feel for you. You wouldn't be the same guy who is always trying to make that last phone call during the safety brief as well would you - bluetooth headset, shouting loudly and totally ingnoring the requests to turn your phone off for the safety of the aircraft because YOU have important business to attend to?

Give the staff a break!

[pacer142]

What concerns me is that this is surely the thin end of the wedge. They'll be asking us to do our own check-ins next and one day no doubt we'll have to print out our own boarding passes to save the airline paper, printing and ink costs.....


I already do for 99% of my flying. I prefer it. Indeed, I have asked myself why I need to even bother with a boarding card when an e-ticket record could be coupled with a frequent flyer card or even a biometric passport in order to verify who should get on the plane.

As for passports open at the page, Malaysia already have biometric automatic gates for passport checking for those with a Malaysian passport. It's superbly efficient, and as the gates are little bigger than those found on Underground stations you would be able to fit twice or three times as many of them in somewhere with limited space like Heathrow as you can manual desks. I hope this comes in in the UK very soon, and I'll happily cough up for a biometric passport when it does to ensure I can use it.