Another day, another cancelled British Airways flight. This one was BA56 from Johannesburg OR Tambo International Airport to London Heathrow and involved the deplaning of 360 adult passengers and 10 infants from an Airbus A380 late into the night, and an extra two nights in the South African city before normal service was restored.
Given the apparent frequency of BA’s aircraft going technical, the frustrated customers, many of whom were high-paying BA frequent fliers, expressed anger at the confusion and chaos that followed the cancellation.
It unfolded like this. The overnight flight was due to depart at 19.20 and at 18.20 we were told to go to Gate 9 and that boarding would begin immediately. After standing in the passageway to the aircraft for half an hour we were then told there would be a 15-minute delay before we boarded. At 19.15 we were told that the technical problem had not been resolved and we should return to the lounge and await further announcements.
We waited, and waited, and finally two hours later at 21.15 we were told to return to the gate and that boarding would start. By 22.00 all passengers were on board and the doors were closed.
At this point, the pilot announced over the intercom that there had been problems with the weather radar system, and they had run tests that so far had seemed satisfactory. However, he declared he needed to move the aircraft away from the terminal to conduct final tests. We would be taxiing for a short time.
With the calm, reassuring tones one expects from BA’s excellent pilots, our captain made it clear he would only take off if he was absolutely certain that this A380 was safe to fly. And so we pushed back and taxied away from the terminal. At 23.00, we were told the flight was cancelled. The flight crew told us that the ground crew would direct us to our baggage and to the buses that would take us to Johannesburg hotels for the night, and that they would answer any of our questions. This turned out to be wildly optimistic.
At midnight we trooped back through the immigration station, now understaffed and thus creating long queues of weary travellers, and on to baggage reclaim. Here there was but one ground staffer, a junior who seemed to be as bewildered by it all as the bumped travellers fired a fusillade of questions at her. At just after midnight we were standing, as instructed, at carousel 8. Then we were moved to carousel 10 and, 15 minutes later, back to carrousel 8.
By now the passengers, particularly those with young children, were demanding that this junior ground staffer give them more information. One could not help feeling sorry for her as she was clearly ill-equipped to deal with the situation and she took to rolling her eyes as the avalanche of questions engulfed her.
Standing around waiting for luggage gave this disgruntled gang of BA clients time to complain about the airline they had long regarded as the benchmark of service and reliability. One young woman who worked with wildlife conservancies told me that this was the third time in the last six months “I’ve had to put up with flight cancellations like this”. Others pointed to other recent A380 failings, BA12 in Singapore with a similar weather radar failure, and on a recent Johannesburg-London flight when the air conditioning failed, and the passengers were similarly offloaded. These were not happy customers.
Finally at around 01.30, we were able to collect our luggage and head for the bus queue that would take us back into Johannesburg. By the time I got to bed it was 03.30 and I had stopped caring when we would eventually fly to London.
Many of the passengers had been bivouacked at the Southern Sun Rosebank, a perfectly decent central Johannesburg location. However, at 10.30, the following morning they were advised that BA had not confirmed a further night’s accommodation and that they had to be checked out by midday. At 10.45, they were obediently sitting in the hotel’s foyer, bags packed. Precisely 45 minutes later they all received an email from BA telling them their flight would only be leaving the following day. They trooped back to their rooms.
BA56 finally took off the following morning at 10.00 with most of the original passengers – some of the more sceptical had booked alternative flights. So, we all got back to London, albeit 39 hours late.
This is a strange story to tell. As the captain stated clearly, he was not prepared to fly an aircraft that was not safe. Appropriately reassuring. However, the organisational shambles that followed, not all of it the airline’s fault, left a planeload of passengers angry and disillusioned with BA.
Jane Baddely, a Gold card holder who was flying in business class, said she was furious, not only at the treatment over the cancelled flight but also with the meagre service on the delayed flight – breakfast was served soon after take-off, dinner just before landing and nothing, no snacks or drinks, in between. “It was very poor, and after that delay I’d have expected better,” she said.
Equally, Mark and Charmaine Olivier, who had spent R150,000 (around £6,250) on their business-class tickets, felt let down both by the chaos around the postponed flight and also by the service on the delayed flight: “We got a rushed breakfast after take-off, then nothing for eight and a half hours, then a hurried dinner just before we landed. It really isn’t good enough.”
British Airways responded by issuing this statement: “We’re sorry for disrupting our customers’ travel plans following a technical issue with their aircraft. We know that this delay was frustrating, but we would never operate an aircraft unless it was safe to do so.”
In the cool light of day, the delay, the chaos, the inconvenience, the poor service on the delayed flight and, of course, BA’s boilerplate apology, all seem par for course these days.
It was not hell, nobody died and eventually we all got home. However, the authority and skill of the captain was undermined by BA’s lack of organisation and disappointing service.
Within 10 days of returning home, BA had at least paid for out-of-pocket expenses totalling just over £300 as well as £520 for delay compensation. Ah, the highs and lows of modern air travel.
What our consumer expert says
Two key points strike me about Graham Boynton’s experience. The first is the value of the flight delay and cancellation compensation regulations set up by the EU and still retained in British law (our guide to your rights is here). It at least gives a measure of financial recompense to those who suffer when an airline lets its passengers down.
But it hasn’t been enough to resolve a fundamental failing which seems to afflict all airlines, not just BA: the often appallingly bad communication with passengers when things go wrong. Rolling technical problems are never easy to deal with, but airlines – and airports – need to have staff on call to deal with them far better than generally happens now. Surely it is not beyond the wit of such a massive industry to improve its performance in this area. We are not cattle. We are customers.
– Nick Trend