Another day, another canceled British Airways flight. This involved BA56 from Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport to London Heathrow and involved disembarking 360 adult passengers and 10 infants from the Airbus A380 late into the night and a further two nights in the South African city before normal operations resumed.
With BA planes apparently often becoming technical, frustrated customers, many of whom were high-paid BA frequent flyers, expressed anger at the confusion and chaos that followed the cancellation.
It developed like this. The night flight was scheduled to depart at 7:20pm and at 6:20pm we were told to go to gate 9 and that boarding would begin immediately. After standing in the aisle to the plane for half an hour, we were told there would be a 15 minute delay before boarding. At 19.15 we were told that the technical problem had not been resolved and we were to return to the lounge and await further notice.
We waited and waited and finally two hours later at 21:15 we were told to return to the gate and boarding would begin. By 22:00 all passengers were on board and the doors were closed.
At this point, the pilot announced over the intercom that there were problems with the weather radar system, and they conducted tests, which so far appeared to be satisfactory. However, he stated that he needed to move the aircraft away from the terminal to conduct final tests. We would eat briefly.
Our captain, in the calm, reassuring tones expected of excellent BA pilots, made it clear that he would only take off when he was absolutely certain that the A380 was safe to fly. And so we pushed aside and drove away from the terminal. At 11pm we were told the flight was cancelled. The flight crew told us that the ground staff would direct us to our luggage and the buses that would take us to our hotels in Johannesburg for the night, and that they would answer any questions we had. This turned out to be wildly optimistic.
At midnight we made our way back through the immigration station, now unstaffed, so we formed long lines of weary travelers and proceeded to claim our bags. There was only one ground staff here, a younger one who seemed as confused by it all as the travelers who encountered her fired a barrage of questions at her. Just after midnight we were instructed to stand at carousel 8. We were then moved to carousel 10 and 15 minutes later back to carousel 8.
Passengers, especially those with young children, were now demanding more information from these younger ground staff. One couldn’t help but feel sorry for her as she was clearly ill-equipped to deal with this situation and began to roll her eyes as the barrage of questions engulfed her.
Standing and waiting for bags gave this disgruntled gang of BA customers time to complain about an airline they had long regarded as the benchmark for service and reliability. One young woman who worked with nature conservation told me it was the third time in six months “I’ve had to endure such a flight cancellation”. Others pointed to other recent A380 malfunctions, a BA12 in Singapore with a similar weather radar malfunction, and a recent Johannesburg-London flight where the air conditioning failed and passengers were similarly stressed. They were not happy customers.
Finally around 01:30 we were able to collect our luggage and head to the queue for the bus that would take us back to Johannesburg. By the time I got to bed it was 03:30 and I had stopped caring when we would finally fly to London.
Many passengers were bivouaced at Southern Sun Rosebank, a perfectly decent place in the center of Johannesburg. However, at 10:30 the next morning, they were informed that BA had not confirmed accommodation for the next night and that they had to check out by noon. At 10.45 they sat obediently in the foyer of the hotel, bags packed. Exactly 45 minutes later they all got an email from BA saying their flight wasn’t leaving until the next day. They went back to their rooms.
BA56 finally took off the following morning at 10:00 with most of the original passengers on board – some of the more skeptical had booked alternative flights. So we all made it back to London, albeit 39 hours late.
This is a strange story. As the captain made clear, he was not prepared to fly an aircraft that was unsafe. Reasonably soothing. However, the organizational confusion that followed, not all the airline’s fault, left passengers on the plane angry and disillusioned with BA.
Jane Baddely, a Gold Card holder who flew in business class, said she was furious not only at the treatment of the canceled flight but also at the meager service on the delayed flight – breakfast was served soon after take-off, dinner only before landing and nothing, no refreshments no drinking, in between. “It was very bad and after this delay I would have expected better,” she said.
Likewise, Mark and Charmaine Olivier, who spent R150,000 (around £6,250) on business class tickets, were disappointed by the chaos surrounding the delayed flight as well as the service on the delayed flight: “We got a rushed breakfast after take-off, then eight and a half hours nothing, then a hurried dinner just before landing. It’s really not good enough.”
British Airways responded by issuing this statement: “We regret to disrupt our customers’ travel plans due to a technical issue with their aircraft. We know this delay has been frustrating, but we would never operate an aircraft unless it was safe to do so.”
In the cold light of day, delays, chaos, inconvenience, poor service on a delayed flight and of course the standard BA excuse all seem commonplace these days.
It wasn’t hell, no one died and we all got home in the end. However, the captain’s authority and skills were undermined by the BA’s lack of organization and unsatisfactory service.
Within 10 days of returning home, BA had at least paid out-of-pocket expenses totaling just over £300, as well as £520 in delay compensation. Ah, the highs and lows of modern air travel.
What our consumer expert says
Two key points come to mind from Graham Boynton’s experience. The first is the value of flight delay and cancellation compensation regulations, which were introduced by the EU and are still retained in UK law (our guide to your rights is here). It provides at least some measure of financial compensation to those who suffer when an airline fails its passengers.
But it wasn’t enough to address a fundamental failing that seems to plague all airlines, not just BA: the often appalling miscommunication with passengers when things go wrong. Ongoing technical issues are never easy to deal with, but airlines – and airports – need to have staff on call to deal with them much better than they normally do now. It is certainly not beyond the wits of such a massive industry to improve its performance in this area. We are not cattle. We are customers.
– Nick Trend