I pity the fool... or how British Airways (BA) turned a crash into a fiasco
Seeing as Jo and I will be in Oz for Christmas we decided to head back to the UK to do some well needed friend and family seeing. However I shall not write about how lovely our chums are, how pleasant the crisp autumnal sunshine is or indeed our spectacularly frequent journeys around the South-East rail network. Instead I’m going to bitch about British Airways. Short story is that the simple flights between two of the worlds largest airports negatively dominated the trip somewhat. The long story involves lots of queuing…
SIN > LON
It was with some mild excitement we packed our bags for home, not only the prospect of friends and England but the promise of a potential upgrade. Our pal Steve had discovered a BA friend on one of his nights out and had been upgraded on his journey home the previous week and we had, through the promise of throwing booze at Steve’s pal, managed to get our names on the if-there-is-room-and-you’re-feeling-generous-upgrade list as opposed to my normal situation of being on the patronise-and-ignore list.
On our way from Singapore to London we made the initial mistake of going to the wrong terminal, requiring a brief jaunt via the monorail, then joined our fellow Friday night travellers bracing themselves for the joy of 13 hours in an uncomfortable tube at 38,000ft. Joining the back of the smallest queue we were small-talked at by a socially stunted businessman as all the other queues shrunk around us. As we stood stationary it began to become clear that one of the two BA flights to London was listed as having no leaving time.
We stood behind a pair of German lady backpackers, whose Asian experience had been so liberating they had rebelled against oppression by freeing themselves, somewhat unwisely, from the constraints of a brassiere. The bra-less wonders were suffering a cancelled flight home, and being rebooked (very slowly) on another flight to the home of beer and cured meats. At this point Jo and I split our queuing in order to break our jinx.
Jo finally arrived at the counter where a girl disinterestedly pushed a letter towards us which confirmed that our plane was, to use a technical term, broken. We inquired as to the status of the other plane… but it seems that during our epic queuing-not-moving period, all the remaining seats had been taken. We dared to hope for a potential upgrade at which point she turned and sullenly marched off down the conveyors to see her boss. She returned so slowly, that if it wasn’t for the conveyor belt carrying her inert frame toward us, we’d still be waiting. Her answer? The Singapore Airport version of Computer Says No.
We were invited to stay at the Novotel until the morning. We inquired as to any options for us to get to London before the rescheduled flight the next day. She marched. She offered us the Oriental overnight. I cried a little on the inside. We asked again about other options. She sloped off, chatted to her mates, came back, ignored us, chatted to the chap on the next desk and then offered us a flight via Hamburg. At no point did she work out that speed might be of the essence, or that having a couple of options might be nice; indeed getting her to engage with us at all was like trying to engage with a particularly obstinate pebble.
We eventually managed to secure our seats for the morning, with a upgrade to extra legroom based on us not taking them up on their hotel offer; what with living a twenty minute cab ride from the airport. This was achieved entirely with Jo’s persistence and finally being able to speak to an airport representative with a less vacant expression.
All in all nearly four hours in the airport, and then home. A good idea might have been a explanatory sign or (heaven forbid) a real, alive human letting everyone know the plane was delayed by 16 hours before they’d queued for ninety minutes, only to be met with Little Miss Fatty Slow-shoes.
Ah but the Singapore nonsense was merely a prelude.
Bump
Jo received a call, whilst in the UK, that she was required to represent Asia to a potential client in the US. This meant that I was to return alone to Singapore while Jo would circumnavigate the globe in the opposite direction, with a two day business stop in Portland, finally arriving a few hours before her Mum lands in Singapore for a holiday. Whereupon we would celebrate by falling asleep an entirely inappropriate times as we would have no bloody clue what time-zone we were in. It seemed that boarding a plane directly from Heathrow to Singapore would be a pale, and easy, reflection of Jo’s Willy Fog style attempts to globe-trot her way home at speed. However I had underestimated British Airways’ ability to bring pain and confusion where there need not be any.
My Dad was kind enough to factor in a lift to the airport in between working at home and a work dinner in town so we gave ourselves plenty of time to circumnavigate the M25. Rather than the suspected multi-hour journey we cruised round a nearly empty road and got me to Heathrow’s glamorous Terminal 4 in record time. Which wasn’t exactly the plan: hanging out in airports isn’t exactly my idea of a great evening.
Four long, strip-lighted hours later we were due to board, only we didn’t – the BA staff turned up at our designated flight time leading us to finally pulled away from the terminal about twenty minutes behind schedule. We parked up by the runway, stationary, I assume waiting for a space in the takeoff queue as we must have missed our ninety second slot to get airborne.
Then there was a bump. Nothing more than a sharp jab of the brakes in a car, but it was to be a bump that would cause me and my fellow passengers a whole world of pain. We sat, buckled up, for the next two hours as the captain calmly told us we’d been brushed by another plane and that the engineers were coming out, as a precaution to check the area for damage. Not to worry though — we’d soon be back on stand and taking off for Singapore as soon as they were done. And we sat. And we were told to stay buckled up in our seats and asked not to get out of them. Eventually a tray of water was brought down and people were allowed to use the loo, very humane of the crew given we were entering our third stationary hour.
Finally the captain returned to microphone to let us know that we wouldn’t be flying tonight and that we needed to disembark and return to the terminal. A collected groan arose as we unbuckled and all hunched of shoulder (damn airline seating) climbed down the steps o the tarmac. What I saw next surprised me, a five foot chunk of the tip of the wing was on the tarmac next to us as we walked down the length of the plane to the buses. Now I’m assuming that attempting to take-off with a bit of wing missing was a bad idea, I hope the pilot realised this, despite his optimism that we’d soon ‘be on our way’. What did expect us to do? Everyone lean to the right of the plane as we accelerated down the runway?
Another Little Journey
Returning to the terminal via the bowels of the airport there was no-one around to explain to us what to do, save a couple of vague people in yellow neon disinterested at the return of 400-odd people who by rights should have been somewhere over Eastern Europe at this point. Through the embracing ‘welcome’ of customs, we all looked at each other slightly bewildered as to what to do. Until five minutes later a trio arrived among the baggage carousels separating the business class from the plebs, but critically not yet answering the question: what the hell were we supposed to do now?
Vouchers for hotel rooms and a hastily put together letter were proffered. The flight would be an an unspecified time tomorrow early evening and we would be put up in a hotel and given breakfast and lunch. We were also given the slightly disingenuous offer of £50 of travel cost if we wanted to get home, given that it was past midnight, so no transport, and anyway the extortionate cost of black cabs limits your range to the borough of Hounslow. So the hotel it was. Oh well I thought, I’ll deal with the hotel and just do some work there until the flight tomorrow. Except the hotels weren’t at Heathrow, they were at Gatwick. Yay.
As we trudged out the terminal, without our luggage, for a hotel at least an hours coach drive away a besuited ITV journalist was asking extremely leading questions about how scared we must have been, how dreadful it must have been when the planes collided and the screaming panic on the plane. Nice objective journalism there.
I also became aware of my own slightly musty scent as we made our way around the (still empty) M25. I had developed that unfortunate plane musk that afflicts you on any journey longer than an hour – except of course I hadn’t gone anywhere. Made me wish that all my clean clothes and washing gear wasn’t still on a broken plane receding into the distance.
We arrived at the hotel over an hour later, to join another queue, this time for check-in. It now being the early hours I’m pretty sure the Sofitel wasn’t staffed up for two coaches worth of guests arriving. As I wandered up to the lift, another coachload arrived to join the queue snakin toward the door. I had been lucky, I’d see my bed by 2AM.
Media Spokesman and More BA Nonsense
I awoke to find the incident all over the morning news, checked the “BBC News” and at the bottom filled in my email in the ‘Where you affected?’ box. Within five minutes I had been called and was lined up for an pre-recorded interview on the midday news on Radio FiveLive. You can listen again until next Tuesday 23rd October, but I have an MP3 of my appearance for you to download and enjoy.
Informed by letter, pushed under the door that we would be sent back to Heathrow, for a half six flight. As two o’clock approached there was an air of waiting outside the headmaster’s office about the lobby of the hotel, as if we knew we were due punishment, even if Sri Lankan Airlines had ‘started it’. The coaches returned to pick us up, but of course still no sign of anyone who knew what was going on. Another coach journey, even more musty by now given yesterday’s clothing, ended by pulling up to the terminal and spilling us onto the concourse. Still with little clue as to what we were meant to do. Should we check-in? But we already had bags onboard? Where should we go? Do we have a special set of desks to rush us through to relax?
The answers to all of these questions were not to be found in the startled faces of the staff, who seemed surprised to see us. Eventually we queued, again for a while only to be issued the same seat while those unfortunate souls connecting at Singapore were directed to rebook their onward journeys at the BA ticket desk. They would queue twice. Lucky people.
It just seemed as if they’d never had a plane cancelled before. There is a saying, “Too many chiefs, not enough Indians” but in this case there were tons of Indians but the chief was nowhere to be found, unless you count the hastily signed letter from the Customer Service manager at Terminal 4 – who at my understanding is not even a BA employee. The guys on the ground were doing their best but it seems there is no process for dealing with delayed planes. It seems the plan is to make the lives of the passengers even more annoying than merely being 21 hours late.
As I finally went through to the departure ‘lounge’ I must of had some sort of look of relief on my face as I was pulled over by two policemen who asked me where I was travelling. After they had ascertained that I was just relieved to finally be on my way rather than have smuggled some illicit substances onto the plane, they wished me well. “These things come in three you know,” said one. I died on the inside a little.
After another few hours, we all went to the gate. The call clearly had clearly gone out to the business lounge as well, people, even more grumpy looking than me turned up. As you would be if you received the level of service I had and had paid quadruple the price for the privilege. In British-under-duress fashion we, with dark humour, swapped stories; a family travelling business class had to try a second hotel at three in the morning; running out of coaches so having to wait for cabs. The list goes on.
They to the dismay of everyone attended as takeoff time passed us by, a voice over the tannoy… “We regret to inform you the plane will be delayed until seven thirty.” Perfectly understandable of course, BA had only over eighteen hours to prepare a plane for a group of shattered and grumpy (and now no doubt former) customers. A few self-important types remonstrated with the woman at the desk, but it wasn’t really her fault she was just the messenger. The non-pleb contingent headed back to the sanctuary of free food and tiny booze, leaving the rest of us to wish we handed already handed in our ‘passenger satisfaction’ questionnaire.
We did eventually board, the plane was less jam packed than the previous evening, one assumes that some lucky souls had managed to get onto different flights rather than we’d carelessly left some still queuing somewhere in the terminal. The empty seat next to me was just as well because my screen was less than co-operative—the final insult. Palpable tension gave way to sarcastic applause as we finally took to the skies.
As the inquiry continues, and once I was finally home, I received a number of messages letting me know I had now been legitimised by Auntie: I was on the BBC News website, with a pull quote and everything. I still don’t know what time it is and I plan to ruin my body clock further by watching the Rugby World Cup Final at 3AM. Yikes.
In short BA are fine, as long as nothing goes wrong, if it does, they’re woeful.
Andy 21 October 2007
Messages
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You English are funny. Like have airline called Ba like noise sheep make. Ha ha ha.
Bertrand Ng # Nov 6
Bertrand old mate! How are you, you crazy fellow?
Last I heard you were running a Bolivian crop dusting business.
Andy Croll # Nov 6
Hey Andy English man!
It good in South America, but miss you crazy English sense of humour. I still remember practical joke with the bathroom plunger. Man! I bet that goat still look surprised. Ha ha ha
Bertrand Ng # Nov 6