British Airways allowing free inbound flight changes due to Border Force strikes

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• Lady London says:

  15 Dec15 December 20:12

  “due to Border Force strikes”

  not, the chaos anticipated at Heathrow?

  not, that for various reasons connected with continuing under-resourcing of their own making, BA wasn’t in a position of knowing they were going to do more irrops on customers anyway in the Christmas peak period?

  I do appreciate that BA is making a gesture towards doing something, and that for organised knowledgeable travellers there can be a lot of upside here (Thank you BA). But this disingenuousness about why BA and LHR are really also doing this…

  • JDB says:

    15 Dec15 December 22:44

    I’m not sure if I understand your post given that if any chaos were to be anticipated at Heathrow, it would be on departures not arrivals, this policy concession clearly does relate to the anticipated Border Force strike. But then then the reality is dull vs conspiracy theories.

  • Nancy says:

    15 Dec15 December 23:15

    Well, since the free change applies to only the dates of the strike (i.e. NOT 26th or 27th) then of course it is due to the border force strikes. Wouldn’t make sense otherwise. Too many conspiracies these says 🙄

    • Rich says:

      16 Dec16 December 09:00

      Exactly. Some people simply take every opportunity to moan and whinge though and should cheer up imo.

• HH says:

  15 Dec15 December 20:22

  Again, why not Gatwick?

  • babyg says:

    15 Dec15 December 20:25

    indeed.. i have some LGW flights id love to move for free…

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    15 Dec15 December 20:28

    Was just thinking that.

    Border force are on strike there as well on the same days as LHR.

    • Nick says:

      15 Dec15 December 23:16

      What a lot of people apparently don’t realise is that BAEF have been set up as a fully separate operating company with their own teams, and are entirely responsible for their own policies and practices, so it’s not within BA’s gift to give. So unless BAEF specifically want to do it, it doesn’t happen… BA can’t force it.

      You didn’t really fall for the ‘customers won’t see any difference’ line, did you?!

      • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

        16 Dec16 December 09:18

        It’s a subsidiary of BA.

        Flights are advertised as BA with BA codes and TPs etc

        When you book it says “operated by British Airways” and doesn’t mention BAEF (unlike LCY where it says “operated by BA City Flyer”)

        Yesterday I cancelled a BA LGW flight and none of the cancellation blurb mentioned BAEF.

  • Nancy says:

    15 Dec15 December 23:24

    For the same reason why not Manchester or Cardiff? Heathrow is almost twice as big as Gatwick and with twice as many airlines. Simple.

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      16 Dec16 December 09:20

      Well BA doesn’t have any scheduled passenger flights from CWL.

• Paul says:

  15 Dec15 December 20:53

  Forget about anticipated. Sitting on BA946 now delayed an hour and we must be coming up against night ban in Germany. Boarding a farce, no driving and little to no communications from crew.

  First wing security took 30 mins. The place is a shamble even when everyone working

  • Rob says:

    15 Dec15 December 21:34

    Something odd going on with German flights tonight. Lufthansa has cancelled Frankfurt and Munich services from T2 and my wife’s Hamburg (Eurowings) was delayed 50 mins.

    • John says:

      18 Dec18 December 14:01

      I just came into London from Dubai via Frankfurt on Lufthansa. The inbound plane to Dubai left Frankfurt 3 hours+ late. Still managed to make the connection in Frankfurt as they turned the plane around quickly in Dubai.. and proceeded to sit on the tarmac in Frankfurt for an hour and a half. Once we had finished boarding, the captain came on the speaker to say the previous flight’s luggage was still in the hold, as there were no ground staff available to unload it. So that took 45 minutes to unload, and then another 45 minutes to load “our” luggage. I’ve jumped to the conclusion that something similar happened to the inbound Dubai flight too, hence the 3 hour delay in leaving.
      The captain didn’t say it explicitly, but it sounds like a lack of ground personnel – whether that’s due to illness or unofficial industrial action or people simply changing jobs.

      • Rob says:

        18 Dec18 December 14:17

        On my BA flight from Prague last week, the crew told me that an earlier flight they were on had turned around at Heathrow without unloading bags, to save time. Passengers had to wait 4 hours for the aircraft to return.

        • John says:

          18 Dec18 December 14:58

          Crazy! If only the luggage could rack up avios…

• SammyJ says:

  15 Dec15 December 21:17

  Booked a part mini-break/part tier points run to Hamburg and back 27-29th Dec. Paid a small fortune for flights too as prices are crazy everywhere this Xmas! Can’t really improve dates as we don’t want to be away for Christmas or NY, so I guess we have zero options. Arrives back at 19.40 to T5…. Any guesses whether this is likely to be less-busy, or a completely chaotic time of evening? Should be able to use E-gates (14yr old permitting).

  At least I won’t need to worry about the arrival time to catch the train home, because they’re also on strike, so looks like we’re driving!

  • Heinztein says:

    16 Dec16 December 07:04

    The e-gates aren’t automatic I’m afraid. There’s folk in a booth looking at the passport and photos. That’s why you see them inexplicably closed even at busy times. It will be fine, hope you have a great trip

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    16 Dec16 December 09:30

    12 – 17 year olds can use the gates when accompanied by an adult,

    And whilst the process isn’t fully automatic it’s still quicker than the officer at desk route

    After you’ve scanned your passport it can take up to 30 seconds for all the data bases to be checked. An officer at the desk can’t process anyone else during that time but an officer watching over half dozen or so booths can be checking the screens constantly and clearing those that get a tick on their screen.

    • SammyJ says:

      19 Dec19 December 20:43

      He’s had a 50/50 success rate on e-gates since he turned 12, so I’m hoping this will be a successful trip in that regard!

      Spoke to BA today and they confirmed that we are in fact stuffed, no options at all other than move to other (useless and impossible for us) dates, cancel and lose over £1000 or pay £130 each in change fees to change both date and destination. I’d go for the 3rd option if it wasn’t for the tier point aspect.

• Katy says:

  15 Dec15 December 21:20

  Will GGL line be able to make changes?

  • Hilda M says:

    16 Dec16 December 11:48

    Katy, you’ve probably already called by now, but the answer would seem to be Yes. I got an email this morning re LHR SFO departure in the period. In my case, the flight is MAD LHR SFO – agent had to check if that qualified or just departing LHR. Change made and I requested if I could fly MAD LHR the day before & overnight in LHR, then taking the morning flight to SFO. A much more pleasant trip for me – Dreamliner & less jet lag hopefully.

    • Katy says:

      16 Dec16 December 20:13

      Thanks, I rang and took ages as they had to read through loads of emails. I am travelling domestically and they have said neither are eligible to change (NCL- LHR on 22nd and LHR- NCL on 23rd). Very annoying as all of my last 6 flights have been delayed and I just wanted to change each of those to the earlier flight that day. But hey ho

• Nick says:

  15 Dec15 December 23:19

  @Rob I’m sorry to be a pedant, but where you write ‘sub class’ you don’t really mean this, you mean just ‘class’. If the cabin is Club, fare classes will be J,C,D,R,I,U. Sub class refers to a numbered category within this (that’s not public), e.g. U1, U2, U3.

  • Rob says:

    15 Dec15 December 23:26

    I know that, but that’s not how the readership will understand it.

    • Nancy says:

      15 Dec15 December 23:37

      Why not? The way I’m reading the rules, it’s the same class or lowest class available. So it doesn’t need to be the same ‘sub class’. I would say for the general readership it just have to be same cabin (unless it’s a codeshare, then it has to be the same fare class).

      • Rob says:

        15 Dec15 December 23:42

        You could well be right about this bit – it wasn’t particularly clear (not these documents ever are – the covering email said that Gatwick was included).

        • Nancy says:

          15 Dec15 December 23:46

          I’m pretty sure that explains why for reward tickets there doesn’t need to be reward availability within that 14 days window (where you can get rebooked into any available fare class within the same cabin), whereas outside the 14 days the exact same fare class is required (reward fare class available).

• VinZ says:

  15 Dec15 December 23:38

  Nice, was thinking about coming back a day later 😀

• R says:

  16 Dec16 December 11:29

  Tried calling BA. They wouldn’t rebook me onto a flight that goes to LCY instead, only a different day/time to LHR.
  Was the agent correct, or do I just call again and hope for better luck? They didn’t seem too knowledgeable about the waiver either.

  • Rob says:

    16 Dec16 December 11:36

    No harm trying again. It is clear on the outbound you could switch destination airport in the same city but the wording isn’t clear on the inbound.

    • R says:

      16 Dec16 December 11:38

      They’re also claiming they can only rebook if there’s Avios availability which seems patently false based on the wording.

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