BA: we can’t work on the rain – it’s very dangerous

[JDB]

@TGLoyalty – I think you are conflating two very diffferent things. There will be times when work should properly cease. There was, inter alia, inadequate visibility. That is not a BA/Heathrow/UK fault – it happens all over the world from time to time and no amount of “technology and processes” will change that. I have personally experienced massive aviation disruption/cessation of operations with hail in Chicago, snow/wind in Tokyo and extreme rainfall /flooding in Singapore, also affecting access to the airport. That’s unavoidable with the best will in the world, unlimited availability of funds or whatever.

What can be better done is improved resilience plans/processes to recover from relatively brief crises so that the disruption isn’t unduly disproportionate. I’m not sure if you noticed how quickly BA recovered from its luggage IT failure problem a couple of weeks ago; that was as a result of a new plan.

As for the comment about it raining a lot in the UK, I really hope that wasn’t serious.

We have had more rainfall in the last 12-18 months than we have had in 150 years and more worryingly, it is falling in much more concentrated events. Have you seen very recent flooding in Dubai, the Balearics or Murcia? Also quite unprecedented. The sewers have been overflowing in many advanced European countries because of excess rainfall. There has been a very marked change and infrastructure built even ten years ago (planned maybe fifteen plus years ago) was not designed to cope with the rain or heat. Ask anyone involved in current major building/infrastrutcure projects about the changes they are having to make.

Everyone loves to criticise BA, but Emirates didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory after the flooding. The armchair experts all think it’s easy but aviation is highly complex.

I never thought I would be the one on HfP supporting the workers vs suitcases!

[TGLoyalty]

@JDB please post your source about rainfall over the past 150 years.

Don’t say you’ve seen the change in flooding (as I doubt you’re 150 years old) There’s also a multitude of reasons why you see more flooding in areas including flood defences pushing problems elsewhere, urbanisation of greater areas of the earth, poor maintenance and management inc poor infrastructure replacement or infect just poor infrastructure planning. The recent Dubai floods are no different to pics my friends have sent me from the Middle East for the last 10 or so years

Heres some of mine

https://www.statista.com/statistics/584914/monthly-rainfall-in-uk/

https://www.statista.com/statistics/610664/annual-rainfall-uk/

[JDB]

@TGLoyalty – source is the MetOffice and rainfall actually been the highest in almost 200 years.

I can’t find it directly from them, but it was widely reported at the time, so I think it is accurate. Sky for instance had the story – https://news.sky.com/story/england-soaked-by-record-rainfall-in-last-18-months-new-met-office-figures-show-13106645

What is a greater problem than the absolute amount of rain is the way it is falling in such concentrated bursts. LHR works absolutely fine in standard rainfall but unprecedented very heavy rainfall, not built into plans which had what were believed to be the most enormous allowances for weather extremes, creates issues. If you cannot see to operate machinery, would you just carry on regardless of the risks to you and others?

I’m sure you will have observed the same effects of rain all around the country. We have noticed it at home in the last two to three years and have had to rebuild run offs and soakaways, as well as widening and digging new ditches to cope with severe rainstorms. Our local farmer and his family have farmed the same land for 115 years and they keep very detailed field by field records as weather impacts them significantly. This was the latest planting season they have ever had owing to flooded fields. There is huge change going on that will disrupt travel plans in the coming years. A few late suitcases certainly seem to have caused a lot of ill informed fuss!

[Richie]

BTW https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/fashion/article/holiday-capsule-packing-list-carryon-luggage-tzdw5vsd8

[jj]

@JDB, you’re constructing your own narrative about this. Sunday’s rain wasn’t exceptional. For most of the evening it was falling at much less than 10mm per hour and would have been classified by a meteorologist as ‘moderate’.

With sufficient investment and the right equipment, humans are able to ensure work safely continues under very extreme conditions: it’s a cost-benefit decision. No-one reasonable would expect BA to plan for a 1 in 200yr event, but everyone would expect investment to prent disruption by an event that occurs daily. Somewhere between these two extremes is a sensible compromise.

As I’m sure you know, the economist’s view of a perfect compromise is when the amortised cost of extra investment is balanced by the benefit of that investment. The problem is that BA is able to externalise much of the cost – the wasted time of its customers – but must beat the full cost of the investment. If delayed baggage carried the same reparation cost as delayed flights, I suspect BA would be rather more incentivised to find solutions to frequently occurring weather events.

[jj]

@Richie, if I’ve paid extra for a flight that allows me take a decent amount of luggage so that I can enjoy my holiday in the way I want, isn’t it reasonable to expect the airline to honour it’s side of the deal? You might want to travel light; I don’t.

[Richie]

I travel light/HBO mainly because I actually don’t have any trust in airlines like BA and airport operators like HAL to take care of my checked luggage.
I also love the time saving, I’ve enjoyed more time in lounges and getting earlier onward transport to my hotel or home.
The problem you experienced @jj is here to stay, BA and HAL will probably never get their act together.

[NorthernLass]

I either go HBO or take everything except the kitchen sink! When it’s the latter option, I expect nothing and most of the time am pleasantly surprised that the bags have made it to the destination or back to MAN at the same time as us. Always have a week’s worth of supplies in hand baggage, as well.

[JDB]

Richie wrote:

I travel light/HBO mainly because I actually don’t have any trust in airlines like BA and airport operators like HAL to take care of my checked luggage.
I also love the time saving, I’ve enjoyed more time in lounges and getting earlier onward transport to my hotel or home.
The problem you experienced @jj is here to stay, BA and HAL will probably never get their act together.

@Richie please don’t blame HAL for the weather issue or BA’s baggage handling operation! It is greatly in HAL’s interest to invest more in the airport but the airlines and regulator prevent them from doing so. In respect of the aspects of baggage handling for which HAL is responsible, there’s been a lot of investment – the new integrated baggage system in T3 and the tunnel linking it to T5 and when T2 gets its new BRF and whole new baggage system it will be best in class (the same system used at Doha for connecting bags, but not check-in as even they balked at the cost of retrofitting). There’s a lot going on that the passenger never sees.

[Ihar]

“Keep calm and carry HB”. I can understand if the stand was remote and a risk of lightening, but otherwise…. I’d just be happy to have been told and the wait and then left. Worst ever customer service is “not being told”.

[TGLoyalty]

@jj and the issue will be that BA spreadsheets will place 0 value to their customers time.

Why I think you have to play the system and complain when things go belly up. Ask for every bit of compo make every complaint because that’s when the real costs start being racked up and the proper decisions made.

I wonder if BA give much thought to things gone wrong.

[memesweeper]

My question (did Heathrow stop boarding other than by jet bridge) remains unanswered. I can only assume, given there were no complaints about passengers trapped on landed aircraft, that they allowed passengers to climb/descend wet steps carrying bags whilst the professional bag carriers were instructed to shelter.

[sayling]

@memesweeper

I don’t recall seeing any headlines of “BA refused to let us off the plane – because it was raining!”, which I’m sure would be all over the media if that happened 😉