Heathrow trialling pre-booked security slots

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• Paul says:

  5 Oct5 October 12:39

  What I always find odd about discussions about passengers flows is that everyone seems to always be surprised at what time people turn up. No one more so that the airport operator!
  Firstly the number of movements / seats per hour is controlled by ATC and HAL and they will know a year out what the maximum flow inbound and out bound will be, not per day – but every 15 minutes! Their historical data will provide details of load factors and they will know of special events and holidays which can be used to further finesse the numbers expected. What they cannot predict is weather, strikes or BA’s IT failures.

  There really is no excuse for long delays at security if the airport operator has done their job, recruited the staff and ensured facilities are operational.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    5 Oct5 October 13:59

    If I know there is going to be a 30 minute ‘bulge’ in when passengers arrive, it’s inefficient for me to increase staff for that period. So, I would make the calculation that we will just have longer queues at that time.

  • Mike says:

    5 Oct5 October 14:00

    Lots of airports only predict on a daily basis with their WFM solution then breaking that down into worker shifts. It’s perfectly possible to predict turn up in 15 minutes intervals given modern data science techniques. One disconnect is airlines mostly don’t share their booking data (so the airport would get an advanced view rather than relying on the historical figures in their AODB), even in the absence of this, it is perfectly possible to predict daily passenger numbers within 1% of the actual number, with a lower accuracy for the split into 15 minutes intervals.

• Lady London says:

  5 Oct5 October 12:53

  Yes, Government seems to have forgotten airports and their services are now privatised and so are their profits.

  Therefore if lack of ground agents, gates, baggage handlers, or other services an airline pays to use connected with an airport fail to perform for whatever reason then the airline should remain fully liable to the passenger and it should be up to the airline to recover its losses or absorb losses or whatever passenger costs or compensation to passengers or anyone else they incur. That chain of supply belongs to the airline and its problems should not be dumped on passengers.

  The problem is that Border Force is not privatised? Is it the same for NATS?..So the principle of government services generally being protected from compensating for their failures,.so far as I can tell, must be applying?

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    5 Oct5 October 13:11

    Do you really want a function like Border Force contracted out?

    NATS is a hybrid public provate company with 49% state owned and operated as essentially a private company.

    • Lady London says:

      5 Oct5 October 13:21

      I’d settle for NATS being liable for service shortcomings then.

      Doesn’t Border Force outsource anyway? Didn’t their staff strike about that?

    • ken says:

      5 Oct5 October 14:16

      Plenty of contract staff used by Border Force.

      Its just that the majority are in sea ports or guarding detained migrants.

• Nick says:

  5 Oct5 October 15:43

  Bits so I can get away with OT… does anyone have experience with Amex/Hilton offers in European countries not on the list? Don’t want to pay the FX fee but if it’s likely to hit the target anyway…

• Colin MacKinnon says:

  5 Oct5 October 15:44

  We (in Scotland) now try and avoid London airports wherever possible.

  Ironically, since we are cheapskates and Heathrow is at capacity, this perhaps benefits BA since they can sell “our” seats at higher prices!

  ps. Big issue for NATS is staff training and retention, and increased load on services from all sorts of new innovations, such as drones.

  • His Holyness says:

    5 Oct5 October 16:43

    You must be devastated you won’t have the chance to perch your behind on one of BA’s ripped lounge chairs in EDI then?

    • Colin MacKinnon says:

      5 Oct5 October 21:49

      Have to say, your holiness, the BA lounge view of the car park is not my favourite view either!

• Rich says:

  5 Oct5 October 19:39

  I thought they’re weren’t going to be any queues when T5 opened?

  • Lady London says:

    5 Oct5 October 20:19

    Yeah Doha Airport has that huge bear thing dominating the terminal. Terminal 5 should have been built with a large pink pig suspended from the ceiling with a piece of hold luggage hanging from onr trotter.

    • memesweeper says:

      6 Oct6 October 05:11

      😆

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