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@yonasi – this isn’t a news website so to fill its pages with ‘news’ summarised from sources that can’t and don’t yet have the accurate facts padded with your own ‘spin’ seems inappropriate. If you don’t know, best leave it to those who do and most regular posters sensibly seem to have adopted this approach.
And fyi, I’m not on X, Facebook or any other similar social media. I like dealing with facts.
Get ready for no blocked middle seats!
Nah, they’re booking J pax into Y .. whereas they could maybe just move the cabin divider back.
Fortunately the return isn’t an issue as it is a separate booking anyway. We didn’t choose to downgrade – we’d much rather be in CW/business class, but there weren’t even any cash tickets for sale in CW on tomorrow’s BKK flight and by moving to that flight we’ve gone for what would ultimately be the lowest cost solution for BA anyway, not to mention one that gives us a basis to recover the trip without losing half of it.
TBH if they were able to retrospectively apply the refunded upgrade voucher to the replacement flight and refund the Avios difference between WT and WT+, I’d probably be happy with that.
Surely the simple path is just to accept any cancellation offered to you for your original flights (assuming it’s for the full cost) and just accept the original Avios and voucher back. That way you’ve paid for exactly what you’re getting and you don’t need to be a complex case in the middle of a storm of compensation requests…
That said, I don’t know what figures you’re looking at and whether the voucher would stop have a useful expiry date or not.
Also, tomorrow’s inbound flights from Asia are now in the air… QF9 PER, BA16 SIN, BA32 HKG, CX251 HKG
I guess they expect to be able to land these planes in the morning!
BREAKING: Following British Airways flights to operate from London Heathrow this evening
BA055 to Johannesburg
BA057 to Johannesburg
BA011 to Singapore
BA259 to Riyadh
BA045 to Cape Town
BA059 to Cape Town
BA015 to Sydney via Singapore
BA249 to Buenos Aires via Rio de JaneiroOut of pure curiosity (and a very HfP question), would the lounges be open for these flights or are staff all enjoying a well-earned day off?
Very surprised as to how they assessed which flights should depart… JNB CPT and SIN clearly highly profitable markets for them I presume if they have two flights to each going out this evening instead of having a flight to other destinations?
Very surprised as to how they assessed which flights should depart
I expect it’s to do with crew rostering and rest times and not profitability – if you don’t get these flights out now, the return ones won’t be able to come back for days due to crew scheduling. It’s a lot easier to rearrange short haul than the longest of long hauls, so I think they have prioritised correctly.
Out of pure curiosity (and a very HfP question), would the lounges be open for these flights or are staff all enjoying a well-earned day off?
Just opening the B gates J lounge would save BA a fair amount.
Good to see Heathrow’s Disaster Recovery plans have proven so robust. Surely it’s got this on its risk register and ‘war-gamed’ for this eventuality.
This is risk management 101.Very surprised as to how they assessed which flights should depart
I expect it’s to do with crew rostering and rest times and not profitability – if you don’t get these flights out now, the return ones won’t be able to come back for days due to crew scheduling. It’s a lot easier to rearrange short haul than the longest of long hauls, so I think they have prioritised correctly.
Odd though that they would not choose a flight to HKG/LAX/SCL then in that case either. For example, rostering the A380 on the BA15 service would free up a slot from the BA11 service to another destination but this is also all coming from an armchair expert and they probably know what is done best!
For those wondering about the reason for the fire at the substation, this evening’s Politico Playbook has some gossip:
A person familiar with the investigations told Playbook PM the conclusion appears to be that an electrical engineer made a mistake which caused the fire. Previous questions about whether criminal damage or terrorism could have been the cause have now been dismissed. “It’s always cockup rather than conspiracy,” the person said.
Very surprised as to how they assessed which flights should depart
I expect it’s to do with crew rostering and rest times and not profitability – if you don’t get these flights out now, the return ones won’t be able to come back for days due to crew scheduling. It’s a lot easier to rearrange short haul than the longest of long hauls, so I think they have prioritised correctly.
Another factor will be which aircraft are available – those due to operate some flights are probably stuck in other countries having either not taken off or turned back on their flights to Heathrow
My wife’s TP run tomorrow has now had to be rescheduled. BA’s Indian call centre answered in 20 mins and was very efficient in moving the booking a few days. Quite eerie seeing empty skies (I can see LHR flights from home) – expect it to be busy tonight as the night-time curfew has been lifted.
Will be interesting to know how many people get bumped over the next few days as Gold cards travel on “full” flights.
Odd though that they would not choose a flight to HKG/LAX/SCL then in that case either. For example, rostering the A380 on the BA15 service would free up a slot from the BA11 service to another destination but this is also all coming from an armchair expert and they probably know what is done best!
HKG pax should be easily rebooked on CX and maybe QR or even via SIN etc. LAX can probably be rerouted on AA and/or other USA airlines (including avoiding the UK completely as many pax might have been connecting to/from Europe or further). SCL probably on IB or possibly via the US.
The BA11/12 and BA15/16 rotations are essentially operating as normal, pobably why they got the inbounds to land at LGW instead of further away. So no need to make any changes to staffing and only pax to be rebooked are those who couldn’t make it on an inbound flight to LHR today. Why complicate things by cancelling BA11 (which is already an A380 so presumably can’t accommodate everyone on both flights), and then sending an A380 half-empty to SYD leaving tomorrow’s BA12 pax in the lurch and disrupting the planned A380 schedule for 4 more days?
Also, obviously BA’s ops teams will try their best to minimise the cost of disruption, but it doesn’t mean they will always make the optimal choices, which can only be seen in hindsight. Us armchair experts might even occasionally have a valid criticism of their decision making, but we will never have enough information to know if we were right!
HKG pax should be easily rebooked on CX and maybe QR or even via SIN etc. LAX can probably be rerouted on AA and/or other USA airlines (including avoiding the UK completely as many pax might have been connecting to/from Europe or further). SCL probably on IB or possibly via the US.
Not really easy just to shift passengers to partner airlines… this is a Heathrow issue, not a BA issue. CX, QR etc. have all had fights cancelled too and their own passengers to rebook so their fights will also be full. Routing connecting itineraries via Europe sounds good, but there’s still a day’s worth of short haul passengers who want the seats on the figures that could connect to the ex-EU long haul. Maybe the long haul get priority, I don’t know, but there simply won’t be enough capacity tomorrow however you spin it.
Going to take a week! Everyone will be prioritising their own PAX. Usually when disruption domestic and short-haul get cancelled first. Plenty of short-haul tomorrow where (restricted) Club is cheaper than (flex) economy. On a plus side, passengers have probably experienced “Glastonbury” without buying a ticket!
Finnair. Not sure if they have an ORC concept though – would need to research!
They do. Mum recently claimed successfully for a BA KUL-LHR that was re-routed onto MH. Asked for ORC (and briefly explained the rerouting etc) and got the 250% BA accrual rate rather than the 150% MH rate.
There’s a form on the Finnair web site – scroll down to the footer and look for Contact Forms. Then Claim Missing Avios and use the From Partners tab.
Writing this using the WiFi on board a Finnair A350 incidentally 😉 Works pretty well. Cost 17 SGD for the whole flight (reduced from 28 SGD when I previously looked – seems to get cheaper after check-in unless that’s just coincidence). Food, service, IFE, seat, all excellent 🙂 And my onward connection to London seems so far to be unaffected by the Heathrow shenanigans 🤞
Does anyone have any info (or links to info) on the car parking / car access situation at Heathrow today? I’ve been told by the person due to pick me up there in a few hours’ time that the car parks are all closed until 6pm today (Saturday) and road access to the airport may be difficult. Anyone know anything? Thanks.
We got dropped at terminal 4 at 3:45 without issue. I didn’t observe car park entrances but slowly filling up here so assume operating ok
Was supposed to be flying from Haneda today to Edinburgh, BA moved us to Qatar via Doha a day later but from Narita. Probably added about 6-7 hours total travel time 🙁 However, we do get an extra day in Tokyo and a flight in qsuites…..
We’re in T5 today… Amazingly our flight, BA5, is going on time! (It was showing as 5hrs delayed yesterday evening)
I can also report that at 9am T5 was amazingly serene. We were expecting crowds of people turning up in there hope of getting on flights, but everything was a breeze. Almost quieter than a normal Saturday morning.
@CaptainPtk I hope you have a similar success with your flight today. I’m glad I didn’t try changing my flight in the end.Was supposed to be flying from Haneda today to Edinburgh, BA moved us to Qatar via Doha a day later but from Narita. Probably added about 6-7 hours total travel time 🙁 However, we do get an extra day in Tokyo and a flight in qsuites…..
Remember BA will reimburse you the cost of the extra nights hotel and meals and possibly the extra travel costs of getting to Narita over those to Haneda
Some advice on our situation would be helpful on what to expect:
We are a family of three booked on LHR-HYD-LHR and got impacted by the airport closure. We were booked in J using 1xAmex companion voucher and 1x Barclays upgrade voucher.
LHR-HYD was canceled and BA provided no options (not even Y) for travel over Fri/Sat. We had some commitments and had to be in India on Sun afternoon, and thus booked a one-way AI ticket from LGW to GOX using cash in Y.
In order to secure the return leg (HYD-LHR) on BA, I called them and the agent confirmed that the return leg was intact and went ahead to refund half the Avios in the booking. There is also a tax refund which I should apparently claim once I have flown HYD-LHR.
When asked about the companion and the upgrade voucher, the agent said that they are now “utilised” for the one-way bookings (HYD-LHR) and that I should not expect anything else.
My questions:
1) Can I claim against BA for my AI Y ticket costs. If BA rejects, do I stand a chance with my travel insurance? (I have both Amex Plat and HSBC Premier).
2) Should I expect some residual benefit on the 1xCompanion voucher and the 1x upgrade voucher? (Another complication is that the Amex companion voucher expires end of April 2025) and there is no way I would be able to utilise it by then.Thanks!
Yes you can claim for AI tickets, but not if you have cancelled the outward journey you gave up your rights when you cancelled. Never cancel!
As you booked them yourself not entitled to downgrade compensation.
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