Why can’t air travel get its sh!t together?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

So apparently failing to run your airport properly is something to be handsomely rewarded with a 49% pay rise.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-61917259

I flew out of there on Monday morning and it was a shambles. 150 passengers queueing up on time for check-in of our flight. Not a single desk for the flight was open until 100 minutes before departure and then it was just one girl. 10 minutes later three hopeless men turned up and spent 10 minutes looking for reels of luggage labels, because the printers had all been left empty. Security was rammed. The lounges were only accepting pre-bookings (no membership cards). Really slow flight turnaround of at least an hour (25 minutes should be enough), so we departed an hour late. No information/announcement that masks were mandatory on the plane until we were invited to board. Just another rubbish airport experience.

[Bibs]

Just had our flights cancelled 20 hours before takeoff! 2,000 mile drive here we come! 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

That’s criminal! Hope you have a brilliant time regardless.

[tim_marra]

59 minutes ago, Bibs said:

Just had our flights cancelled 20 hours before takeoff! 2,000 mile drive here we come! 

Meh, take the Evora as you should've planned in the first place 

[Bibs]

With 2 adults and 2 16 year olds? You can take them if you like but I'm not putting up with 12 hours of earache both ways! 

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

Are you taking the Kia EV? It’ll be time to come home by the time you get there..😀

[C8RKH]

Just for some balance, flew out Monday morning to Berlin with the carry on (wife).

Edinburgh Airport is usually shite, but had fast track so missed the usual shambles at security. Easyjet flight left 30 minutes late due to a technical issue at Stansted earlier that morning.

Easyjet were brilliant and made up time.

We had to wait on stand at Berlin for 20 minutes for ground crew (not easyjet but their handling agents) to turn up. So much for German efficiency.

Booked to come home tomorrow afternoon and all so far as scheduled. Fingers crossed.

Weather in Berlin and Potsdam has been sensational. 35c today and we've been enjoying concerts (Crowded House, Berlin Chamber Orchestra, Social Distortion (US Punk Rock Band!) and Queen), and fresh water lake swimming in Wannasee, Nikolasee, Schlactensee etc - absolutely stunning and so easy to get to from Berlin. Potsdam was stunning also.

So, not everything is doom and gloom with travel....

[Bibs]

9 minutes ago, LotusLeftLotusRight said:

Are you taking the Kia EV? It’ll be time to come home by the time you get there..😀

Nope. Fortunately I've got 4 cars and will be taking the 65mpg oil burner!

 

[Bibs]

First 800 miles done, 17 hours in the car. Thanks Ryanair. First and last time I've ever booked them. 

While the news has reported that their staff have been on strike today, the email cancelling our flights blamed French ATC. They don't have to offer compensation if it's a labour dispute, unless it's their own staff. I'll be looking into this a little more when we're back. 

[Mysterae]

Don't blame you @Bibs.

I think these travel companies have deteriorated since getting back to work after covid. I don't know if it's the staff, management or both. I wouldn't want to be travelling by public freight right now.

[ramjet]

I would suggest that companies have lost so much revenue over the last 2 years that they would now be looking for any loophole to get out of repaying money to customers. They lose a little bit more money by processing a refund as well in wages to the people involved.

Even though lots of companies in the world said that they were to help customers, that might have been the case during that time, but costs were inevitably going to go up after things start getting back to normal. (and we are still a way off that, I would suggest)

[RobinB5]

Used to take hopping over to Europe for a few meetings for granted. Last week should have been 2 such trips. One outward and one return flight was cancelled (BA and Brussels Airways). Ended up taking the TGV from Lyon to Leuven, which was actually really easy. The rebooked BA flight back on Saturday from Brussels was delayed for ~90 mins after about 20 of us who boarded had to wait for another 50 who were stuck going through security due to lack of staff on duty. Flight returned to LHR T5, car was parked in T2&3 Long Stay so had to get the tube back to T3 and the bus back to the car park. Train strike didn't help that at all. Off to Milan on Monday, have little confidence that'll go smoothly either.

Hopefully the industry gets its shit back together, retrain enough staff to replenish those who left during Covid. Maybe we're guilty of taking things too much for granted when there are no problems? Wonder what else we might look back on in a few years and realise we'd never had it so good?

[LotusLeftLotusRight]

I hope your Milan flight goes OK. When I was in the Security queue at DUS on Wednesday, I got talking to a couple of other passengers. One of these was an Italian businessman trying to get back to Milan. He was incredulous at the chaos in DUS and said there had been no issues when he flew out of Milan earlier in the week. Teutonic efficiency? Yeah, right. 😀

I still have no sympathy for the industry. They plan the flights, not the customers. If they can’t deliver what they plan, then they’ve only got themselves to blame.

[Sparky]

51 minutes ago, RobinB5 said:

Hopefully the industry gets its shit back together, retrain enough staff to replenish those who left during Covid. Maybe we're guilty of taking things too much for granted when there are no problems? Wonder what else we might look back on in a few years and realise we'd never had it so good?

Exactly this, and not just this industry.  We live on the knife edge of just-in-time delivery and continuous growth where shareholders' profits and executives' bonuses are more important than the integrity of the business itself.  It's unsustainable, and it's about time this dynamic had a painful reality check.  I fear nothing will change in my lifetime though.

For aviation, a crippling blow was dealt by (allegedly) low-cost airlines.  The expectation now is to be delivered safely to your destination of choice on a multimillion dollar piece of incredibly complicated machinery via a complex process of safety protocols, for less than the per-mile cost of a bus ticket into town.

[RobinB5]

38 minutes ago, Sparky said:

For aviation, a crippling blow was dealt by (allegedly) low-cost airlines.  The expectation now is to be delivered safely to your destination of choice on a multimillion dollar piece of incredibly complicated machinery via a complex process of safety protocols, for less than the per-mile cost of a bus ticket into town.

Exactly this! Some things are by their very nature luxuries and should be costed accordingly.   

[C8RKH]

So flew back from Berlin to Edinburgh with Easyjet yesterday. Could not fault Easyjet again, everything on their side went well.

Shame that when  the ground crew loaded the plane, baggage etc they just disappeared, switched off their radios and left us stranded at the gate with no tug or ground crew to push us back for 30 minutes! They had switched off their radios so could not be contacted - I had visions of the Two Ronnies sketch with them sat in a hangar behing cargo boxes with a brew on and a game of cards.

Oh, and whilst at the train station, several of the trains were running 20 - 35 minutes behind schedule.

Seems like German efficiency is no more and has gone out of the window like everything else.

Still, it was nice to get back to Edinburgh Airport and feel like I was entering a 3rd world country again. Everything they do at Edinburgh Airport is on the cheap, or, as a means of trying to fleece yet more coin from the Traveller. It truly is a shocking airport and I hate having to use it, and pay their various extortionate fees every week!

4 hours ago, RobinB5 said:

4 hours ago, Sparky said:

For aviation, a crippling blow was dealt by (allegedly) low-cost airlines.  The expectation now is to be delivered safely to your destination of choice on a multimillion dollar piece of incredibly complicated machinery via a complex process of safety protocols, for less than the per-mile cost of a bus ticket into town.

Exactly this! Some things are by their very nature luxuries and should be costed accordingly.   

Depends on where you are etc. For large parts of the country a bus is not an option as it does not exist! Fine if you are in a large town or city, but aside from that, forget it.

[Sparky]

We once found a full-sized snooker table in a 'disused' store room in T1 at LHR.  Never did figure out how they'd smuggled it in.  They were most miffed when it was removed.

[Bazza 907]

Might explain the queues...?

[RobinB5]

Lol, got to Milan Linate just fine but only to find all taxis are on strike! 1 hour of public transport awaits what would have been a 10 minute cab ride. O well, at least the weather's nice (34 degC at 7pm).

[Kimbers]

Like I said before, we have cancelled our holiday abroad in September and saved ourselves £2000 and are instead going back to where we stayed last week when our previous holiday was cancelled with 2 days to spare.

Unfortunately everyone was thinking the same thing and there were only 2 smaller lodges left on the whole site and not many more for the rest of the year. At least we know we will be going on holiday and in future, Easyjet are added to our list of "Never use again" services (with TUI, Ryan Air).

 

[Kimbers]

BA to cancel a further 10300 flights from August to October. Making it 30,000 overall for BA now. Even the better Airlines can't seem to attract people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62070451

 

[Sparky]

The money's not great, the managers feck off and leave you standing there like Custer when the shit hits the fan.  Monumental abuse from stressed passengers.  BA have just massively upped their staff travel benefits in an attempt to attract people, but it's not working very well.  After expenses, the government will pay close to the income for sitting on one's arse.

At least BA are cancelling up front.  10000 across 3 months is roughly 50 round trips a day (generally all shorthaul), which isn't a lot as they'll generally be consolidating multiple-flight destinations like Paris, Brussels, Copenhagen etc.

An objective view, honest!

[RobinB5]

Short hop over to Nuremburg from LHR used to be easy with BA. Now have to leave from LHR to get to Frankfurt (then ICE to Nuremburg, easy), and return to LYC next week (+tube back to LHR to pick up the car). On the plus side just bought an Arteon which should make the drive pleasant. On the downside likely a flight will be cancelled leaving me somewhere in south Germany. Schnitzel and kartoffelsalat here I come  (first world problems and all, for sure). All this to see a PCB being wave soldered!

[Bibs]

On 24/06/2022 at 20:24, Bibs said:

Just had our flights cancelled 20 hours before takeoff! 2,000 mile drive here we come! 

As I understand it, as our flights were cancelled so soon before take off we are entitled to compensation. 

The email said it was due to a French ATC strike however the news said that the airlines staff in France were on strike on the 25th June - It looks like there's no compensation due if it's an external labour issue but there is if it's the airlines own staff so I can see this won't be easy! We had 4 return flights booked, I cancelled the return leg so I believe we are entitled to £220 per cancelled flight on the outbound journey. 

https://onlineform.ryanair.com/gb/en/eu-261 - That's the claim form and it's broken. I've contacted their customer services and expect to be dead of old age before I get a reply. 

Anyone have any idea of my options? I don't really want to use one of the solicitors that advertise they can get the compo as a: I don't want to give them 40% and b: this shouldn't be a complicated process once I get the ball rolling. 

I'm thinking to write to them giving them the chance to pay the compensation due and then if no response, just submit a money claim online?

[Kimbers]

When TUI refused my claim I went to a specialist Solicitors who deal with travel claims and they recovered not only my monies and loss of income claim (3 days) but some extra for "buggery" factor. It cost me the buggery factor money to hire them but got my money back.