BA chaos + now threat of summer strikes

[peoniesarejustperfect]

Anyone fancy joining me for a bit of a moan?

Due to fly with BA twice this summer - once next week long haul and then in August for our family holiday which is booked separately to the holiday bit.

I can't get over what is happening at airports at the moment. I understand all the reasons, just so surprised that they don't know in advance what problems they are going to have in forth coming week. Lots of cancellations, lost luggage, texting people at the gate. Whist def a first world problem, it sounds miserable. And now BA announce that they are balloting for strike action. For some reason it takes them 22 days to do this.

We've been talking about what to do with our August family holiday - that would be the one that would really disappoint us. Whether we should cancel our BA flights and book with another airline, just cross our fingers & hope or cancel it all and book something a bit more reliable. Like so many people we are desperate to get away.

What's everyone else thinking??

@MaisWee Thank you for explaining all of that. So fascinating how things have unravelled. You must be feeling very disillusioned with it all. I can see it taking a lot longer to get better.

I'd guess outside school holidays it will be a lot easier. I cannot talk from experience about BA as I avoid them, in part because I avoid Heathrow, and partly from bad experiences years ago.

Worth considering somewhere that ferry and car or Eurostar and other train could reach.

OP- I could possibly be on the same flight as you in August..

BUT- I have flown BA short haul and long haul 6 times in the last 2 months with no issues at all- flights left on time, service onboard was great, no problems at all in Heathrow.
Fingers crossed for August! (I think Preveza is about a 4 hours drive from Athens!)

Fingers crossed. Toes crossed. Everything crossed!!

Eurostar (or coach?) to Paris
Overnight train to Milan
Train to Bari
Overnight ferry to Patras
You could bus to Prevezer 3-4 hours
(We'll be ferrying from Piraeus to the Cyclades)

We'd actually talked about doing it that way pre-covid. Hopefully it won't come to it but it's an option if we need to. Don't mind being delayed coming home 😁

AA are still in 5 until at least end August

Should take about 48 hours.

@FloweryCurtainTwitcher
Not for lots of flights. T3 for the majority.

I think hold your nerve with BA OP. Lots (all!) airlines are having problems right now so rebooking with another airline just moves the problem rather than reduces the risk.

I'm BA Gold and have flown with them quite a lot over the last few months. They're prioritising long haul so I wouldn't be too worried about next week (especially as half term and Jubilee madness should be over). My last 4 semi-long haul (USA) flights with them have been fine. No issues with baggage. Bag-drop was very busy if you're flying economy - but at lot of that seemed to be down to lots of inexperienced travellers being a bit clueless and incredibly slow. At times like that I miss the business travellers (of which I used to one pre-Covid) being slick and super-organised. Only problem I had with one flight was that we were bussed from the gate to the plane and it turned out that the plane was at T3 (but the gate was T5) so it was quite a long bus ride. At one point everyone on the bus was wondering if we'd pop up at Gatwick .

Pre-Covid I was affected by BA striking - I was actually starting a new job and for my first morning 'at work' I should have been on a BA flight to Texas for a meeting with my new boss but it was cancelled due to strike action (and I found out less than 24 hours before departure - not good on a Sunday when you can't contact anyone in your new office!). BA rebooked me quickly though and although it was a pain having to do multiple connections (and be downgraded to economy), I made it to my destination, only 6 hours late. BA will sort you out.

@HundredMilesAnHour
We are going to Vancouver with BA later this month. We are going business so I’m hoping we are ok. We have a further flight booked the following day so cannot miss that! Maybe holiday madness will have subsided by then and the champagne might be back in the lounge!

Champagne is back in the lounge now. 😍Still no sign of any actual caffeine in the coffee though. I swear those coffee beans are stunt display beans.

I don't think Vancouver is getting club suites until later in the year unfortunately but I still quite like old club (although club suites knock it out of the park).

BA aren't restoring full club service until later in the year so you'll get your main meal all served at once (rather than course by course) which personally I find a little annoying but....you may also need to go to the galley if you want more drinks later in the flight but other than that, it's pretty much business as usual. Club seems to be much busier than economy.

If you haven't been to T5 since Covid, club bag drop is right at the far end (towards the First Wing) so keep going past all the bag drops (and the scrum of people queuing) until you get right to the very end of them.

Enjoy your trip!!! And don't worry, it'll be fine!

@HundredMilesAnHour
We have been once and the lounge was refurbished but lacking in its usual food snd drink offerings. I think bag drop was in that location when we last flew. We did notice last time (short haul) that business was almost half the cabin!

It should be fine with BA. I worked at Manchester at a huge unspoken about issue is that a large number of the auxiliary staff and baggage handlers were from the EU. There are other factors at play obviously but in the main it's a brexit fuckfest.
If the airport you are flying from wasn't so reliant on EU workers issues will be much less

I am another who loves airport chat!
it’s not just that lots of staff were furloughed, a massive massive problem is security clearances. I have worked for government bodies and my family still do-quite a few of the airport staff need enhanced security clearance, which can take weeks and weeks to process (8 weeks average for a basic ish clearance but double that potentially for things like home office who look after immigrating and border forces). It’s a perfect storm. I’m not flying til November but actually I’m not convinced it will be entirely back to normality even then!

I flew with BA twice in April with no problems. However, they do need to sort the lounge out at Heathrow T5. The kid’s food option was tomato soup! The BA lounge at JFK was far superior and they definitely had proper champagne. I don’t think the fizz in T5 lounge is actually champagne.

I am flying with BA again in August and I am a little worried about that because it’s just before the August bank holiday weekend. But I don’t think it matters which airline you have booked with because they are all having problems!

We are flying BA club to NYC in August, then internal flight down to Orlando (spending a few days in NYC on return leg. So nervous it will be cancelled. It’s DS’s 18th & A level results a few days before we go, and he goes to Uni a few weeks later. We haven’t had a family holiday (like many) since October 2019 so really want to spend this 2wks making memories. So stressful, made worse by the fact currently have to do a LFT test to get into USA, super stressful. Now all this.

@Darbs76
My view is that BA like to keep their flagship
routes going. They also still would have quite a few flights going to NY. August is not high season for club to NY I think but my guess is,: it’s not short haul so maybe don’t worry!

If the flight goes before 1pm use the pre evening check in at T5
or use airportr- BA were offering this for free earlier this year but it is about £40 to pay. They collect bags from home or hotel in London the night before and then you just sail through T5.

It is champagne in the 1st lounge and £100 a bottle LPGS in the CCR
Not sure about galleries but certainly used to be.

Champagne is back in the lounge at T3 Heathrow, but the food is still quite woeful. The advantage of T3 is that you can use the Qantas lounge (and another one, I think) if the BA lounge isn’t up to scratch.

Last time I flew from Heathrow, BA offered the AirPortr service, where they collect your bags from home, free of charge. It was great - made a big difference, and I just skipped through security with hand baggage. I’d consider paying for it next time, and getting public transport to the airport instead of a taxi.

I really wouldn't worry about NYC flights. It's BA's flagship route. If flights aren't full, they may cancel a couple and consolidate them but between BA and AA there are so many daily flights to NYC that you'll be fine. I assume your connection to Orlando is on one ticket?

And you'll get club suites to NYC, yay!

Happy, positive update!

Back from our BA trip to US and so happy to report that all went really well. T5 was calm and BA were very well organised - they have crew in new, casual style uniforms helping people as they arrive to bag drop / check in / with Verifly.

Priority security was slow, but didn't take too long. Main BA Lounge was heaving, so we decamped to Zone B lounge which was almost empty. Flight was one of the best we've ever had with BA. Great cabin and lovely staff. Coming home was almost as good. T5 was busy but the passport queues were moving. Our luggage came through quickly but we all looked at a mountain of cases and winced. Hope they were reunited with their owners before too long.

So now just crossing fingers for our package holiday in August! Strike threats, Covid waves and airport chaos - I think my new mindset needs to see this holiday as a bonus, if it happens. 😃 How's everyone else feeling?

I've just had one of my flights cancelled. This is the domestic flight from Heathrow to Newcastle but after a long haul flight from Canada. So, not happy at all as the car will be at Newcastle airport.

Tried phoning tonight - can't get through

@LibertyBlues Oh no! Did you manage to get through on the phone? Have they offered you another flight?

My short break to Madrid with easyjet was cancelled yesterday and we were due to fly out until end of August. Full refund to follow.