Park Hyatt Hamburg hotel to close

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• Mike says:

  2 Jun2 June 03:55

  Iberia must be very frustrated by BA to do this now unless it’s something they have been looking at for many years, this wouldn’t seem a good time for a move of service provider, during peak, during a staffing crunch. This is bad PR for BA, if I was them I’d rush out a press release saying this was by mutual agreement and will allow BA to focus on its customers (… plus same for Iberia yada yada).

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    2 Jun2 June 05:17

    Do we know if it is just about cost? It might indeed be mutual if BA haven’t got enough staff for their own operations and are also short staffing the Iberia service. The question is where will their new ground handler get the staff from?

    When Iberia moved over to T5 the service was great from a passenger perspective. There never used to be separate Iberia desks and so you could check in at any desk. This was done by making all Iberia flights operate primarily under a BA code. Turned out the reason for this was because the T5 systems such as conformance could only work with BA IT at the time. Once they updated this then the IB flights started operating under their own prime code again, Iberia got separate desks in T5 so there was no longer the integrated feeling there was at first.

    • Paul says:

      2 Jun2 June 06:48

      T5 checkin was never designed to operate separate classes let alone separate airlines. Only First was planned to have a dedicated area with everyone else able to checkin anywhere.
      The tensa barriers were also never intended to be a feature.

      The fundamental flaw in design is that anyone arriving on public transport arrives at the two northerly doors as do most by car. Consequently passengers don’t fan out naturally across the terminal.

      • qrfan says:

        2 Jun2 June 08:09

        They have humongous signs telling you the relative queue size of north vs south security. If a person is too stupid to read the board they deserve to queue. The only problem with T5 is the useless airline that operates there.

        • Alex Sm says:

          2 Jun2 June 21:43

          that last line is very well said!

      • Track says:

        2 Jun2 June 08:18

        @qrfan The problem Paul writes about is not so much the security queue but the fact that you arrive from Underground/HeX and most car drops — and if you want Business Class checkin and Fast Lane — you have to know to walk through the entire terminal to the opposite side.

        Not only there were tensa barriers, but also some kind of weird separation by zones (if you fly to one city you go to K, another city you go to J) — that is what displays tell you.

        But no display, or staff tells you that you can go to Business Class counters and check in to ANY destination there.

        Obviously for that you have to walk to the other end and here you weight cost/benefit, queue here or walking time + new queuing time down the terminal.

        • qrfan says:

          2 Jun2 June 12:03

          I’m glad I don’t have to travel with people who struggle to work this out.

      • AJA says:

        2 Jun2 June 08:32

        When travelling business class and arriving by car I always tell the taxi to keep going to the southern end. They naturally want to stop at the northern end. I prefer to tell them as it saves me the walk and is often less congested.

        I hate the separation between Iberia and BA though. The Iberia desks in the middle mean you have to walk a lot more in either direction to north or south security. There should have been a third security entrance in the middle of the terminal.

        The biggest flaw with t5’s design is that it is too long and narrow. A squarer terminal would have been better. As it is from arrival by plane or car/public transport and even the lounges I find you invariably have to walk the length of the terminal as you find yourself at the wrong end.

        It would really help if flight departure gates were advised at check in or on the monitors with the estimated departure times, rather than that stupid “gate will be announced 40 minutes before departure” notice, surely that must be possible? I accept the occasional gate change also happens which complicates matters.

        • Marcw says:

          2 Jun2 June 08:58

          The announce the gate late to make sure passengers lounge in the shopping area. That’s it.

        • WaynedP says:

          2 Jun2 June 14:06

          I use App in the Air to learn departure gates hours in advance with satisfying accuracy.

        • Mike says:

          2 Jun2 June 21:23

          Not announcing the gate is part of the sales activities for airports. If you knew the gate you’d probably just head down to it whereas not knowing the gate forces you sit centrally doing nothing or preferably go shopping or eating. The airport looks at the retailer data plus BCR data (plus other feeds) in the hope of optimising “dwell” as it known.

• Peter says:

  2 Jun2 June 04:51

  If Iberia think they can get an effective handling service at Heathrow delivered at lower cost, they are living in a fool’s paradise. Their CEO should try looking at UK media to see what a race to the bottom does for customer service and company reputation.

  • Catalan says:

    2 Jun2 June 07:23

    +1

  • Track says:

    2 Jun2 June 08:22

    Other hand, the biggest HAL shareholder is Spanish Ferrovial, S.A.

    One can think about many things — from an informal accommodation by HAL management to potential tangible or untangle kickbacks on the new service contract that Iberia will award to the new third-party company.

    Competition is good, but there are always side benefits.. when such service contracts are involved.

• JandeW says:

  2 Jun2 June 05:00

  Poor Rob – he must be heartbroken with the closure of the Park Hyatt Hamburg. His fave hotel! It is a great place to stay when visiting Hamburg…☹️

• yorkieflyer says:

  2 Jun2 June 05:56

  A big shame for BA SA customers wanting to connect through London flights, the product was old style BA full service on older aircraft and perhaps herein lies the problem in that they obviously struggled to compete with agile low cost new entrants. All those bemoaning BA dropping full service on short haul please note, yes I do miss a free G&T too.

• Michael C says:

  2 Jun2 June 06:41

  Will def try & squeeze this in to go to the miniature train thingy with the fam.!

• Paul says:

  2 Jun2 June 06:41

  Given the lamentable experience I endured last night at T5 I am not surprised by IB decision.
  BA cancelled 3 late afternoon domestic services ( the usual abuse of their domestic monopoly plus a flight to Brussels)
  The staff we met were uninterested and unhelpful. Boarding was farcical with group 1 called then groups 1-5 called almost immediately. Boarding took longer than the flight.
  The Captains crass announcement that the 15 minute delay, “ was a result” given the circumstances nationally, came home to bite him when the push back failed, got stuck, and meant we were delayed longer than the flight.
  The cabin crew while charming were utterly out of their depth and the service to 12 club passengers was chaotic. I was served after the 20 minutes to landing announcement and I was in row 1.
  BA have completely lost the plot and the road back is a long one

  • Tariq says:

    2 Jun2 June 07:49

    You were on the same flight as me then. Luggage took an age to come out and it was a close call to get the last train from the airport!

    • NorthernLass says:

      2 Jun2 June 08:17

      That was actually a result, as my last domestic flight was delayed by 2 hours and no luggage was even loaded!

• qrfan says:

  2 Jun2 June 06:51

  EUR200 isn’t particularly cheap for a corporate rate. I’ve stayed in 5 star hotels around the world on corporate rates and generally haven’t paid more than that per night. Tokyo, Shanghai, Dubai etc. It was similar at my last shop. When they allow personal stays on a corporate rate you’re laughing.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    2 Jun2 June 10:42

    I think banks and financial institutions are actually terrible at negotiation and will pay ridiculous rates for things others get for far less

    • qrfan says:

      2 Jun2 June 12:03

      I’ve only worked at bulge bracket investment banks so that certainly isn’t my experience. Our fully flex transatlantic fares aren’t much more then the non refundable fares that constitute a deal on here these days.

• Ty says:

  2 Jun2 June 07:07

  I have a BA award flight booked on Comair in December. Does anyone know how BA will deal with this booking if Comair doesn’t somehow bounce back?

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