blawson

Noticed the LA flight is delayed over 24 hours - the flights out of EDI to LHR - by over 4 hours - down to bad weather in London - anyone unfortunate enough to be travelling? How bad was it?

BA0283 LHR LAX 03 AUG 11:50 04 AUG 12:30 Estimated

BA1453 EDI LHR 03 AUG 17:25 03 AUG 21:58 Actual

BA1455 EDI LHR 03 AUG 18:15 03 AUG 22:13 Actual

BA1459 EDI LHR 03 AUG 19:25 03 AUG 22:56 Estimated

BA1463 EDI LHR 03 AUG 20:45 Cancelled -

BA1465 EDI LHR 03 AUG 21:35 Cancelled -

Gaza

Judging by the vidoe on the news tonight it is very bad. Flash floods and intense thunderstorms in the LHR area caused LHR to close to all arrivals and departures. Waterloo Station was out of action for 5 hours. The roads are not much better. According to the BBC things are gridlocked.

PhilH

But in the City it didn't rain at all!!! Was walking across London Bridge earlier and it was dark as anything, lightning all around, but not a drop of rain. Could see the rain off in the distance though, over towards Heathrow...

PhilH

norodnik

Just got back home from Zoo LHR.

Arrived at 1630 for BA504 to Lisbon.

Then the rain came..............

Almost no information, all the boards showed information that was completely erroneous. Even when the flights were cancelled they still showed up as delayed.

I must admit, I smiled at all the BA staff as they suddenly had loads of irate customers and its not their fault.

However, when I was finally told the flight was canx at 2215 there was no help available.

BA said to rebook on the next flight, but the next 2 flights to LIS were already oversold, so managed to get on the BA 504 tomorrow. Just as well I phoned as the queues were enormous.

Finally, managed to get out of T1 with my US colleague by being nice to the immigration lady but then there was a mass of humanity waiting for the canx flights bags to come back.

Had a word with the Baggage staff and they said to go home as the bags would not be through and they will get put on my re-booked flight.

so now have LHR-LIS 4th Aug, LIS-LHR-JNB on the 5th.

How much do people want to bet my baggage doesn't show up for days ???

graraps

wouldn't they re-route you to another carrier?
I thought this was the main differentiator between FSCs and LCCs.
Next time try AirBerlin.

chuck1

I was at the Renaissance Hotel all day.

BA and other flights were getting in and out but very late.

I was to fly LHR-JNB tonight (August 3) on BA57 at 9pm.

When I arrived at the airport it was delayed until 11pm.

They said the plane was getting checked out due to a lightning strike.

I was in the lounge and in the T1 shopping area.

About 10pm all the flights started to cancel and the staff pretty much got up and left as they said the passengers were rude to them and they did not get overtime.

At 1040pm my delayed flight cancelled with pretty much everything else.

There was no one to assist me and the airport was a zoo. Fortunately I got back out of T1 before the masses hit immigration.

Lord know what is happening to my baggage. BA is full tomorrow night so they rebooked me on South African.

When I got back to the Renaissance it looks like several BA flights have landed and there is no staff to park them and unload them.

BA told me there is just a small management staff at the airport right now.

They really lost control of the place tonight. Quite disgraceful.

Agents just got up from the check in desks at the end of their shifts with huge queues still in the terminal.

When I left a large group of police officers had arrived to try and control the irate crowd.

koksy

This is exactly what happened when the "bad snow" came last winter! You would think that they would have some contingency in place for this kind of thing... and for staff to walk off when passengers are "being rude to them" is inexcusable...

edi-traveller

I got caught in the chaos yesterday.

Was meant to be on the 17.05 to EDI. By 20.00 the EC lounge staff still wouldn't admit that it had been cancelled even though it said it had on the BA website and it had disappeared from the boards. In fact the EC lounge staff seemed to have been very badly supported by their management team as they had no idea what was happening, and the lounge was filling up with grumpy people.

I eventually gave up and went and got a hotel. Changed my flight to the first one this morning via the Gold line.

Got to the airport this morning and of course the self service check in machine didn't recognise my booking. Domestic departures, which no longer has a Silver or Gold line, was utterly mobbed.

So I went to Zone R (which still had quite long lines) and they managed to call up my new BP. It seems that many people who were re-booked could not use the SS machines - this needs fixing - as this is supposed to smooth our journey rather than divert us into huge queues when things get tricky.

As the storms have moved up to Scotland I'm still not convinced that we are going to go on time this morning.

irmster

my mother was delayed about 9 hours out for a Dus-LHR flight - it eventually landed 2-30am st Stansted - which was very helpful as her car was at LHR.

Frequentflyer99

I picked thee wrong day for my LIS R/T trip. WE got into LHR on the return only 2 hours late butthen had to queue on the taxiway for a stand. We were no 4 in the queue and it took 1 hour 45 mins to get on-stand. Whilst we were waiting ,they were still landing every 2 mins behind us. According to the Captain the queue was phenomenal by the time we finally got our gate !

For the 1st time ever I heard a BA Captain close to losing his rag. Why ? He was plainly completely exasperated that he could not get any sense from "the Company" about when we would get our stand !!!

I do now have a better understanding about why they wait so long to cancel flights. We arrived in the London area at 21.10 and were only then told we would have to circle for 45 mins (I spoke to the Captain 10 mins before and he said they had not yet confirmed whether we would be able to land). That gave us a wheels down time of 21.55 and, I suppose, the prospect of sending the plane off again that evening. Only once we had landed at 22.00 did it become apparent that there was no stand. And then it appears that non-one could tell when a stand would become available because of continuing weather delays with outbound aircraft.

PUCCI GALORE

This will not make anyone feel any better, but I know that the crews are all over the shop. Loads commute in from Europe and domestically. Most come in the evening for next day flights and in the morning for late afternoon, evening flights. The rostering darlings must have got people's minimum rest down to a fine art, as everyone in the London area who are out of minima are being called out. I'll bet there still will be cancellations - so it's not going to be a fun day at Horridrow. Yes, I'm on call out - so I must run over to see whether I'm needed (hell to know what to pack - no real idea where I'm likely to end the day!).

So my sympathies to you all. I gather from the AA Forum that they have had hell in Miami and Chicago as well for other reasons.


Tchuss

ajamieson

Welcome to London Heathrow, the UK's most important transport hub*

* indoors if wet

norodnik

I'm off to Lisbon (for the second time today) on 504 but I see that the early morning flights are already 1 hour late going out.

I think the worse thing about last night was just the total lack of information. The Lisbon flight had a departure time of 1930 posted which came and went. Then it just said delayed.

When I asked at the front she said the plane was at the gate (gate 42) which was a coaching gate and was ready to go but there were no staff to board the aircraft.

Tried to internet checkin on my re-booked flight but of course it won't allow it. Rang BA to ask why as I bought the ticket through them and they said it was because my fare class had changed and it would have to be re-validated at the ariport. What a lame excuse.

Now about to ring Special Services to see if they can find my bags.

Frequentflyer99

I was sitting in 1D in CE on our ill-fated return from LIS last night, so had an eagle's eye view of the goings on in the galley. Very nice cabin crew, but they spent the last 2.5 hours of the experience hunched over their manual working out how much longer our ordeal need continue before they could get 12, then 15 and then 18 hours off and would relieved of their standby duties for today. I don't criticise. I merely report.

Tanzguy

I too was booked on BA57 last night to JNB in F. After they cancelled the flight, no one in the lounge provided any assistance, other than "all the hotels near the airport are booked."

While I was not one of the irate multitudes screaming at BA employees for the weather, their handling of this was to leave. By midnight there was only one BA employee in T1. They closed the F and J lounges...and just said to rebook in the morning.

Got in the line at 12:30 AM for the rebooking, and no one showed up until 5:15AM. Then, I got only a standby for the flight tonight.

I normally really sing the praises of BA, and like the airline and the quality of the F and J products...but their customer relations last night was abominable. I know the weather was not their fault, but a little assistance would go long way!

Still camping on the floor at Heathrow....