ACARS

Slightly odd experience yesterday evening returning from PMI to LGW. First up the aircraft had no working APU, so we needed to start one of the engines on stand and then get ourselves going in the right direction after pushback. Anyway, if only it was that simple and a mere 5/10 mins adrift, but no. To start the aircraft arrived a little behind, only 15-20 mins, no issue with that at all.

It was a busy flight, 158 onboard and inevitably some bags relieved from passengers, this slowed things with one individual trying everything to stop his bag going below, but we got there, however even despite this we were to be going nowhere, the reason - too many bike boxes and gold club sets. Now as I understand it when you want to fly a bike box you have to let BA know and effectively book it right? Is it the same with Golf club sets?

The reason for the protracted delay was given as trying to accommodate all of the boxes and clubs, and this was clearly causing some headaches, with the turn around manager of Iberia back and forth into the flightdeck like yo-yo. There were 3 pilots in there, two of them with two stripes each so I guess it was also a training flight.

Anyway everything took an age but we finally got going, topping of the list of ‘what else could possibly delay us’ a lightning storm passed by the airport. 😂

Anyway the question I have really is why were they seemingly caught off guard by all the boxes and clubs when they are all pre booked? Any ideas?

And finally, yes I do know that the golfers may not have been cycling and vice versa

Mileometer

I've never had to let an airline know in advance when I'm traveling with golf clubs so, although I can't remember the last time I flew SH with golf clubs on BA, I'd be surprised if the golfers had given prior warning.

sungod

You do not have to pre-book a bike box, it's treated as just another baggage item.

The website does say "Just tell us you are bringing your sporting equipment by using our online chat via our contacts page as soon as you have booked your flight.", it used to say to let them know, rather than explicitly by onlne chat.

However, in the past when I've called BA to say that I'm taking a bike box, the response has been; "why are you telling us? you don't no need to do that, just turn up and it'll be fine", I never bothered after that, though if I were travelling and knew an event was on, I would let them know.

I suspect the reality is that they just assume there'll be room for all the suitcases, skis, golf bags, bike boxes, push chairs, tubas, whatever, and hope for the best.

TheOldMan

Where they cycling golfers or golfing cyclists ?

ACARS

Ahh that is interesting, I was always under the impression they needed to be notified, such as with Skis, but I might be getting different carriers and their rules mixed up. I know BA limits the number of skis.

No wonder they had no idea where they were going to put them all then.

ACARS

A very good question indeed.

PETER01

Some discussion here re bikes. There's a link to ba.com which recommends informing them beforehand (including golf clubs)

Fly a bike from T5

13901

Whoever's given you that advice shouldn't have had.

I keep on repeating it anytime I can: It's in everyone's best interest to pop on the ba.com chat, get to an agent, and write:

"I'd like you to add a BIKE SSR to my booking with PNR XYZ123. Bike box dimensions are XXXcm * YYcm * ZZcm, weight is QQ kgs. Thank you very much".

The purpose is precisely to avoid what happened to the OP. A bike box takes the space of 3 bags and aircraft holds aren't like Mary Poppins' bag.

where next

It was the Majorca 312 bike race over the weekend, I had friends riding. I doubt they had enough energy for golf too.

EuropeanPete

If you think that was bad, you’d better hope you’re not on a flight to the next elephant polo championship.

dnw

I dropped my best friend off to that flight and he told me the same story. Amusing / irritating that cyclists can delay aircraft as well as every car on the road…

ACARS

Thanks PETER01 I’ve just had a read and seen 13901 message in there too.

Yes it was a sea of bike boxes at check-in, everyone seemingly had one and like you say there is only a certain volume available for
everything, not sure if the Gatwick aircraft being loose loaded helps or not in this sort of a situation?

However if everyone, or the vast majority HAD indeed had that code added, why on earth was there no plan or pre plan to work it all out volumetrically? I may well be overthinking it but it seems like the loading delay could have been avoided or at least limited given there are only so many minutes allocated to a turn around and sometimes the tasks will just take longer due to the amount that needs to be done in the time available.

ACARS

It really did seem to play out like an unfolding comedy of errors as time went on 😂 But we got away in the end so mustn’t grumble too much.

I’ll refrain from further comment, haha.

CT-UK

As others have said no need to let them know about bikes. I went to PMI in Feb and on my flight out and back there were about 10 bikes. (PMI airport and the island are setup for it). This weekend was the end of a huge cycling event as well.

ACARS

I have a feeling pre-notification would help minimise delays, especially with the insight from 13901