-
I’ve been watching flights, more specifically aircraft movements for the last few weeks as the reports of cancelled, delayed and missing bagage are rife for BA at the moment.
As an example, here’s BA482, being serviced by G-EUOF
https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/g-euof
Landed from copenhagen at 08:27 this morning, 3 minutes ahead of schedule, due to depart to rome at 09:45 Already estimated for 11:24, 105 minutes later than scheduled!
And this is just one example. Turn arounds at heathrow are becoming a joke!
What’s the reason?
I’m not sure there is anything particularly unusual happening at T5. Today, severe storms are forecast and that has been a problem on several days in the last three weeks causing ATC to instruct reduced flow rates with significant knock on effects as there is virtually no spare capacity. It has been an issue at LGW as well. There has also been severe weather across Europe in recent weeks in addition ATC strikes in France and Spain. Eurocontrol is severely understaffed and German airspace is very overcrowded (and worse during the recent two week NATO exercises) as aircraft bypass Russia and war zones which affects flights from London towards more easterly parts of Europe. The turnaround at LHR isn’t really a good measure of anything – while it could be down to BA staffing or something airport related it can equally be because the departing aircraft is waiting for a slot and in the European system (unlike the US) the aircraft can’t get that slot until the whole flight plan is apparently clear.
This will all get much worse over the summer and on top of what will be bad anyway, Eurocontrol staff are threatening to go on strike.
Stuff happens.
From weather to ATC restrictions to being short of all sorts of staff to equipment breakdowns.
According to cabin crew, not enough aircraft or crew to serve all European legs for BA at the moment 🤷🏽
According to cabin crew, not enough aircraft or crew to serve all European legs for BA at the moment 🤷🏽
What you are being told by cabin crew is correct, but has to an extent been addressed by BA with hugely expensive wet leases at LHR and LGW. There is currently very little resilience in the system so all the factors cited above (which have been fairly exceptional vs previous years) stretch the system which does have standby aircraft and crews beyond its current capacity. It’s not just a BA problem, many aircraft deliveries have been delayed for airlines around the world and recruitment is a global issue in travel and hospitality.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Popular articles this week:
