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hifly View Drop Down
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    Posted: 16 Jul 2013 at 12:24pm
I read in yesterdays' i Paper that BA is in the top ten airlines ranked the worst for on-time departures and delays according to FlightStats.com. I won't give the entire list but include it with other nationals.
 
On-time Flights. BA: 66%.  Air Portugal: 67.2%. Air France: 72.6%.
 
Here's BAs' End of Term Report.
 
Housemasters' Report. 
 
BA has an overwhelming but misguided self confidence, possibly through being appointed Head Boy by the Governors. He throws his weight around with considerable force towards younger boys who he thinks could undermine his dominance. Unfortunately his bullying tactics, indecision and procrastination in the past have let others, (whom he should have encouraged,) down. This lead to him being given the monicker of Buy American.
 
In his arrogance he has even called himself 'The Worlds' Favourite.' although he is often late and loses things.
 
Geography: Reasonable knowledge of where most countries are.
 
History: He tends to ignore this subject.
 
Economics: Inconsistant results each term.
 
Art: Somewhat unimaginative.
 
Headmasters Report:
 
Despite his arrogance he does seem to be popular but must learn not to be complacent and to Try to Serve.
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 Jul 2013 at 11:54pm
Originally posted by hifly hifly wrote:



I read in yesterdays' i Paper that BA is in the top ten airlines ranked the worst for on-time departures and delays according to FlightStats.com.


A huge airline mainly from the worlds busiest airports - and it's main huge is one of the fullest, capacity wise - in the most congested area of big international airports in the world (ie, Western Europe - Heathrow, Gatwick, CDG, Frankfurt, Schipol etc all within a stones throw of each other) will always suffer in the stats.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Slopey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jul 2013 at 1:39am
Air France's and KLM's Business product is crap however, whereas BA is consistently pretty good.

CDG is a horrible airport. T5, especially with lounge/Flounge access, is miles better. Schipol is good, but not compared to the T5 lounges.

Being where I am, I always need to transit to a hub. Those choices are invariably LHR, Schipol or CDG, and T5 is by far the best both for transfer and facilities. Coupled with FastTrack through immigration on the way back in, it's a breeze. (which CDG or Schipol can't match as we're not in Schengen).

So in several respects, if you take the club product and T5 into the equation, BA is a better airline.

(IMHO).

Do you actually fly on BA frequently? I've just come back from short-haul in Europe - flight was 15 mins early inbound to LHR, immigration and security took me precisely 10 mins (Fastrack), then into the lounge for an hour and a half before next flight up north which was precisely on time. Great service all round.

BA premium economy (World Traveller+) can be a bit crappy, but the only airline whose PE product I've found to be better is Quantas who have a great PE setup on the A380 - almost as good as their Business product except the seats don't go flat (obviously).

For Long Haul to the east, my favourite is BA, preferably on the 747 upstairs. Quantas is a close second, although their club seating arrangement is 2 2 2 which is rubbish. Emirates are a bit meh and have stupid lounge restrictions (and transiting through Dubai is a pain). The Singapore A380 isn't bad.

For the West, BA again to Canada/US, but their 767 fleet needs refreshed. American and United are absolutely atrocious. I've never done Virgin to the US or Oz because I have (Gold) status with BA/Qantas so I've never bothered, and until last month, I couldn't connect to a hub via Virgin from my home airport, but I can now, so I may well try it in the future.

So on balance, I'd still go for BA every time.
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hifly View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hifly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jul 2013 at 10:58am
Ok, fair comments all round. Considering the problems BA has with the infrastucture at LHR then I guess delays are inevitable. LHR was known to pilots as a building site with an airport.
 
So this now begs the question. How do we increase capacity? New airports, new runways? It's a political hot potato. Any thoughts?
 
To be honest, I haven't flown BA for a very long time but always found their service good, Singapore was my favourite.
 
My School Report was a little gripe at how BOAC and BEA had a hand in the decline of the UK aviation industry. Bang go the Air Miles.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hot_Charlie Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jul 2013 at 11:21am
Originally posted by hifly hifly wrote:

New airports, new runways? It's a political hot potato. Any thoughts?


Build a new airport anywhere south of Manchester, and a lot of the problems that exist now will still exist. London will still have 2.5 major, busy airports, and quite a lot of the traffic coming out of Europe to the Atlantic.

If you're going to build a new airport, it would have to be huge, allowing 4 runway ops and in effect replacing LHR and LGW.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Slopey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jul 2013 at 11:26am
Air Miles have been replaced by Avios which are "miles" better!

For example, you can collect Avios on Tesco shopping and have them applied directly to your account. Reward miles and flights are much better now also - I've just taken the whole family of 4 from ABZ-LHR-LCA-LHR-ABZ for a mere 48,000 avios and £400. Not too shabby :) If you keep up with FlyerTalk, then you can regularly get an Amex card which can net you 25-30k points (and then you cancel the card), which will get you two economy flights to Europe for nowt. You need to play the system a little, and have the will/need/cash to do it, but it can be quite worthwhile.

I don't think BA have contributed to the decline, successive governments have done that both with air passenger duty (which is getting ridiculous), and the lack of a 3rd runway at Heathrow. A new airport would help, but with the population density of the SE of England, there's nowhere you could put it which wouldn't generate millions of NIMBY complaints.

Even Boris island isn't immune from that, and would take so long to construct, it'd be pointless.

Anything north of London is pointless, people won't travel to Man/Brum/Liv to fly out - they'll transit to CDG or Schipol rather than go overland.

The 3rd runway at Heathrow is really the only sensible option, but there's no political will to do it which is what this sort of thing is going to need. We're a small island with not much space, and there's no getting away from it that someone will need the balls to get it done, even if it displaces the surrounding population. But none of the current politicians have the balls to do it. They're all sycophantic public opinion chasers.

Heathrow was (and still is) a building site, but T5 was a massive undertaking - I was involved in some of the construction on the auditing side. T2 is also a huge undertaking, but the results have been worth it , certainly in terms of T5. I won't fly through Heathrow from another terminal now if I can avoid it - or I'll go elsewhere.

If I loose my status with BA (which is unlikely given the amount of travel I'm scheduled to do over the next 12 months), I'd consider flying through Schipol, but KLM/AF have a terrible reward scheme, and a silly 1st Jan to 1st Jan reward period - most of my flying is Aug-March, so I straddle a membership year so will never get a decent status. Although they do give you little china Dutch houses full of gin in Club - I've still got a fair few to collect!
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hifly View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote hifly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Jul 2013 at 12:30pm
Extra runways seem to be the most environmentally ?friendly? and least controversial and let's face it, if you live under a flightpath in London the noise from jets isn't much more than the noise from the street. Certainly they're a lot quieter than in they were  when I lived in the LHR flightpath in the 70s'. (But I like the sound of a jet, Concorde, Tu154s.)
 
BOAC and BEA weren't the only culprits in the decline of the UK aircraft manufacturing industry. IMHO it was a combination of rapid advances in technology, (in which the UK led the field post WW2), then the setbacks, Comet, government, management and the unions all played their part. Thankfully we finally saw sense in getting involved in Airbus.
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