LHR T5-The National Disgrace, No to WW, break up BAA etc etc. Thread (Merged)

[al446]

Just seen it on the Guardian site, T5 baggage system broke, it appears someone put the wrong time into the system so whole computer system crashed, pax walking away in disgust leaving BA to send them on. Good old BAA.

[10secondsurvey]

God help them when the clocks change to BST.

[manintheback]

35 flights now cancelled, average delay in excess of 2 hours for those going - some long haul departures have had the pax on them for 3 hours waiting for the bags to be loaded.
Well our travel department did tell us to stay well away for a couple of weeks.
Well done BAA :mad:

[Mark in CA]

Big discussion of this over in Rumors & News:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=319985

[Storminnorm]

Does BA stand for Baggage Absent?
Does BAA stand for Baggage Also Absent?

[Storminnorm]

Isn't it lovely that Alison Reed, (None Executive Director,)
enjoys travelling.
Pity she doesn't extend the same enjoyment to the fare-
paying customers of BA. :hmm:

[pasoundman]

Reading the Independent I came across this little gem ...

" Arriving passengers who wish to check in for an onward flight are required to travel down two levels to the Underground station before ascending five floors to departures, all in lifts that have no call buttons to push from the outside, nor floor numbers to push once inside. "

http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/simon-calder-terminal-5-is-a-breathtaking-display-of-institutional-hubris-802331.html

So, you're sent to the 'basement' and then expected to get up 5 floors in incompetently designed lifts ?

WHATEVER were they thinking of ? I used to think the Indians were disorganised but ..... !!!

I love how the reporter tells his tale of attempting to reach T5.

The essential amateurish nature of our transport enterprises was made clear at 4am yesterday. I went to a bus stop in central London to catch the 4am bus to Heathrow so I could hopefully meet some of the staff and talk to them. The bus did not show up. But in a very British way we queued in the rain for a bus that did not come to try to reach an airport terminal that did not work.

What kind of complete LOONIES are responsible for this shambles ?

[al446]

The kind of tossers who will get bonuses when the complaints stop flowing, the press get bored and we all forget what a bunch of tossers they are (as pax). Couldn't we just shoot the management that dreamt this up? If AMS was run like this there would be crim charges maybe
But love WW's bit of 07.00 how wonderful it is on thurs

[rhythm method]

How we all laughed. Ahh poor Willie, he really deserves our sympathy... NOT! :E

[PAXboy]

Does BA stand for Baggage Absent?
Does BAA stand for Baggage Also Absent?
In the big thread on R&N, a new acronym is suggested for issue to those that book biz travel:
ABBA - Anything But BA
:p

[JEM60]

Glad I wasn't involved, must have been unpleasant, but most new things have teething problems, and it does seem to have been an accumulation of technical errors, rather than just one thing. I am not suggesting that the press made too much of it, but we all know that in a few days time, it will all be sorted, running smoothly, the press will have lost interest, and, when it IS running smoothly, there won't be any praise given to it, because things running properly don't make news!!!

[manintheback]

One thing that can be guaranteed is that T5 wont be running smoothly in a few days. I'd suggest months and BA seem to be indicating they think similar too with the possible postponing of moving T4 flights to T5.

What surprises me is so many seemed surprised given the track records of BAA and BA in recent years. My travel plans until September were made in order to avoid the new terminal. Regrettably the top management of BA and BAA reflect that of many a company these days. Over reliant on too few further down the food chain, getting away with it most of the time and then one day it breaks.

[joniveson]

Things running properly don't make news because it isn't news. It's how it should be but unfortunately in the UK these days is such a rarity that it should be reported as news!

[PAXboy]

Managers are no longer paid to avoid things going wrong. They are paid to clean up the mess when it happens. I have seen this many times over the past 20 years.

Companies have decided to NOT pay for training and maintenance on some items and save the money. They have decided that it is cheaper to fix the problem than to prevent it and they may well be right. But the PR problem and the destruction of staff morale are without price and, unfortunately, do not appear on the balance sheet. If there was, there would be targets for them and a bonus to be awarded and an MBA chasing them!

Let's look on the positive side ... BAA's hold on LHR is now down to their fingernails! In fact, they will be rather relieved when the govt forces them to sell it. But, now, who will buy?

[nickmo]

But 'they' want to learn about the experience and use the informatin to better benfit the other airports in the uk......

Harry said so here:

"...the CAA considers that there may be useful lessons to be learnt form the early passenger experience at Heathrow in the months following T5 openoing, with potentially broader implications across the Uk aviation sector..."

....in his letter to Maria da Cunha (Head of Legal Affairs at BA), plus it seems the overall operation is to be monitored and the knowledge gained used to benefit.....well, not to sure really. Passengers, the industry, BAA shareholders.....

Anyway, bit of reading here if you get bored waiting for the baggage to appear: http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/5/ergdocs/caaletters.pdf

And indeed, who is in the market for an airport now....other than an asset stripping fund, maybe..

[Pax Vobiscum]

BAA's hold on LHR is now down to their fingernails! In fact, they will be rather relieved when the govt forces them to sell it. But, now, who will buy?
Topshop :{

[PAXboy]

DCP130C, that is a good point you make about the thread title.


One thing for sure, BA will never be the same again. Of course, it has not been the same for many years and we have seen constant evidence of that in here, what we see in the news and our experiences when travelling. The company might have continued to muddle along steadily for another 5 or 10 years but could not sustain a change of this magnitude that exposed the management to the real world and their own shortcomings.

It is my view that dozens of other companies around the world are in an identical position. That is, be they younger or older companies (and BOAC/BA is very old) they can manage normal day-to-day but if they had a Titanic disaster, then they would fail. That disaster might be a financial short fall that takes them to court, a simple recession in their main country of operation, a fire at their data centre that reveals insufficient contingency plans, a strike by their pilots at the launch of a subsidiary - the list is long.

For BA, T5 is Titanic and whatever happens in the next three months and even when they pull it round - they will never be the same again. It gives me no pleasure to see thousands of staff having their efforts thrown away. This is a change in the order of ranking of the major players of the global airline world and BA is sliding.

[groundhand]

PaxBoy,

Sadly this is not a Titanic episode as the icebergs have been hitting BA over several yeras.

Can anyone actually remember the last year that BA did not have a major problem? Every year there is something, normally staff related, that causes massive disruption to their passengers.

The lessons, going back several years, have not been learned.

Agree that BA is an old company but unlike many old, and older companies BA have not moved forward. They are stuck in BEA/BOAC 'flag carrier' mode. They have never resolved the integration, they still have industrial relations from the 60's and management who seem to think that 'qualifications' outweigh ability.

Had market forces been allowed to operate back in the 70's we would not be having this debate as BA would be long gone, like some of the airlines they put (questionably) out of business. Sadly for the UK they were allowed to survive and look what we have got today.

Now with open skies and the possible breakup of the BAA's SE monopoly it will be interesting to see what the future holds. They've withdrawn from the regions, focussed on the debacle of LHR and will struggle to get their core passengers to return. New options for passengers on the lucrative Atlantic routes and decent European transfer hubs from regional airports do not bode well for BA's future. Time will tell.