Reply With QuoteComplete bloody nightmare, I bet there are some poor sods in your position that also had their last holiday trashed due to the ash cloud!
How can a few inches of snow on Saturday prevent flights on Monday / Tuesday…….
Just had the news that our flights to Thailand tomorrow are cancelled…… never mind sir will give you new flight in January, that was helpful!
So now, no flights, no holiday, no refund on accommodation, no presents as we did the gift thing already, oh I lie this year I get the joy of filling in insurance claims and having to eat the shortfall on cost.
What a total result, funny the Mrs didn’t see the funny side when I suggested Thai take-away for dinner tonight …….. :evil:
Complete bloody nightmare, I bet there are some poor sods in your position that also had their last holiday trashed due to the ash cloud!
"I looked with pity not untinged with scorn upon these trivial-minded passers-by"
Just watched the ITN National news looks like we are turning into a laughing stock :shock: 3rd world Britain :shock:
No cameras allowed inside the terminals :!:
4 day sleep over at the airport and a 5 hours standing out in the freezing cold for the eurostar is a national disgrace.....
if this was happening in other parts of the world we'd be laughing our nuts off at them.
We're halfway to your position as we're due to fly out on Thursday and BA have gone into a daily flight schedule mode so we won't find out until Thursday morning if we're flying Thursday morning :shock:
Have done all the emails to the apartment rental people, as their webste shows there is no booking after mine we're hopeful(ish) that they'll let us 'move' the booking a day or so, that's if we can get on the next BA flight outta Heathrow :(
Schipol got hit by the same 'freak weather' and is now almost back to normal so why isn't Heathrow?
Because BAA are more concerned with making lots of profit rather than investing in the equipment. You can bet your bottom dollar they won't leave a stone unturned to keep as many shops as possible open
Ironic how they sold Gatwick who are coping much better
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My niece flew home from Hong Kong for Christmas yesterday :)
BUT
She was diverted to Edinburgh as Heathrow was closed :(
Hong Kong - Edinburgh......6000 miles = approx 12 hours
Edinburgh - Woking......410 miles = 20 hours :shock: :shock: :shock:
Unbelievable.
I don't want to sound like a grumpy old git but it's been a very tough year for the mrs and it looks like another six months at least before she can get a chance to take more time off and get to the sun, that's the hardest bit, trying to hold up someone who's got nothing left in the tank and has had her hart set on some well earned down time.
All this because baa puts profit ahead of customers after all this bad weather has been predicted for over two weeks.
Still I hope all you with travel plans have better luck than us.
So the fact that BAA's owners made a billion profit last year isn't cutting much ice with you then?Originally Posted by Captain Morgan
There are times when I wonder if the nationalisation of key services isn't a bad idea. At all. :(
R
Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.
Just about as much ice as they cut since Saturday.............
Peronaly I think there's a lot to be said for nationalisation but I dought I'll see it again in my time. Still that's another soapbox :twisted:
I've given up trying to travel by public transport at Christmas. My missus family lives in Northumberland, whereas mine lives in Bournemouth. A couple of years running we tried using regional air routes between Newcastle and Southampton to bridge the distance. Both were nightmare journeys - one because of fog stopping flights and another because of bad weather. One year when we tried to use the train, it took 2 days with an unplanned night stop in York! Britain's infrastructure is pathetic when it comes to the weather.
Unfortunately, there is no chance that renationalisation will take place because of the money being made by the vested parties.
Maggie may have done a lot for this country but starting us down the route of privatisation wasn't one of them. As long as a company providing a service has a shareholder then it's commitment to it's customer will always come second.
Seems that way- clearly poorly administrated and policed, i.e. not enough provision for this and holding them to do it. This is a strategic matter and my how many times abroad I've been asked if Britain is broken. It's embarrassing totally unneccessary and not hard to fix if the legal provision and administration of it were done. It's not like it's not happened before and won't happen again (I mean the snow fall, and not with any sense, the chaos as a result of inadequate preparations, equipment and capabilities at hand).So the fact that BAA's owners made a billion profit last year isn't cutting much ice with you then?
There are times when I wonder if the nationalisation of key services isn't a bad idea. At all. :(
R
AP.
This topic makes me so ANGRY! .... Rant over.
Gatwick is shut till 6am and that on the back of it being closed a few weeks back. Having to deal with a fraction of the passenger numbers also helps them.
The whole of europe has problems not just us, the number of times the heathrow area has had the amount of snow that settled on Saturday in the last thirty years can be counted on the fingers of one hand, its hardly surprising they don't have the same facilities as Moscow.
Anyone who is going to miss their family or holidays of course has my sympathy but I don't see what they could do really.
Actually a whole host of countries had their "national disgraces" too with their press - which you won't know about, unless you can read multiple European languages - similarly browbeating the airport operators into action. What's different though is that the airport operators there got eventually on with it, on pain of death, whilst BAA issued unctuous, conversation-killing platitudes about Elton Safety (who he?) and Ferrovial allowed its grovelling chief executive to spend 89p on a bottle of Saxo.
"Revenue spend per head going forward on a like for like basis is significantly improved, particularly in the sandwich and convenience food sector, with alcohol spend growing significantly without our customer base", say BAA, "and going forward we look forward to more planes staying on the ground to maximise spend capture opportunities per revenue square foot going forward on a like for like basis, going forward".
That's how Heathrow is run, and that's the language they use ;).
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
There was a weather show last evening that showed exactly how the rest of Europe is coping. They aren't. Helsinki's airport, of course, is open - because they have three runways and they clean one whilst one is always open. No chance of a third runway at Heathrow soon (good - but that's a separate issue).
My aunt lives in the Black Forest. Last Thursday night they got 40cm of snow. By Saturday it was up to her windows (maybe 90cm - low window on that side of the house). The main roads are just about open but side roads, no chance.
The airlines are just as bad - I was told a load of mis-information regarding my wifes rescheduled Sunday flight. She didn't fancy an overnight stay at Heathrow with two little kids and so we decided to cancel the flight. It now transpires that if she'd taken a punt and gone to the airport, she may have caught her flight.
I am very sorry to hear of the OP's predicament. What a sod of a position to be in. I have been in the position where I have been snowed-in for a flight when living in the US however that was for a day or two. In the new year I had to sleep in an airport for two days!! It was awful so I commiserate with you. Fingers crossed from me something positive materialises as a solution.
Best,
Dev
Everybody accepts that during falling snow it's not possible to operate an airport normally. But as the OP mentioned we've not had snow falling for a few days at LHR.
Even Cardiff airport, which has had more snow that LHR is operating more or less as normal. Although they have had to close (suspend operations) 3 times in 5 days during heavy snow.
Contrast this with Rochester NY. I was there a few years ago. Just after I arrived we had 30 inches of lake effect snow. I called the airport to ask how many day's they'd be shut down? The guy laughed and told me that they'd be flying 1 hour after the snow stopped.
LHR is a major world hub. We must be the laughing stock of most of the developed world by now.
We live about 15mins from Heathrow and my wife and her family were due to fly to Ireland on saturday lunch time.
The web said the flight was going ahead but we could see that nothing was taking off as the sky is usually full of planes and clearly that morning there were none.
So we left it till the very last moment and then decided not to go and guess what half an hour later they cancelled the flight, now if we lived further away we would have had to go to the airport to be in time for the flight.
All they have to do is bite the bullet and cancel flights earlier (and they could) and save people all the hassle and the situation they have with overcrowding in the terminals!
Still, then they wouldn't sell gallons of coffee and tuns of sandwiches not to mention the car park gold mine.
Actually, shareholder commitment always works in favour of the customer (through improved efficiency and competitiveness) AS LONG AS there is a realtime competitive marketplace. This is the key thing that is missing with airports. Whilst there are a range of airports to choose from (especially in the London area), they are not in practice in very much competition with one another -- they are all at near enough maximum capacity and the customer has little practical choice about which airport to use. And so the thing that in theory keeps market forces working to the benefit of all market participants (customers and shareholders) is largely missing.
In general, the only point of privatisation is to introduce competition. Privtisation without genuine, real time competition is pointless and counter-productive. My impression is that the Thatcher government got too caught up in the mantra of privatisation without giving practical thought to how genuine, real time (i.e. not sole supplier long term tenders and contracts) markets could be created in some sectors.
Realtime competition in airports would have required relaxation of planning controls to allow more airports to be built such that there was excess capacity at any one time and so that less competitive airports would have failed.
The same principle applies to railways. Starting with an in-place infrastrucuture, as was the case with UK rail privatisation, the method of selecting a sole private-sector service provider for each route based on a tender and long term sole-supplier contract was bound to result in poor service levels since, once selected, the service provider had little need to remain competitive: It has no competition on its route! Thus The only way to make rail privatisation work (i.e. by providing real time competition) would be by multiple service providers concurrently competing on the same route and/or by allowing new physical routes to be built by private industry with no taxpayer/state involvement whatsoever. If this is/was not feasible, practicable or socially tolerable then it is an indication that rail privatisation was just not beneficial or feasible in a practical sense. That said, the nationalised approach was clearly failing, so perhaps we swapped one sort of failure for another.
Indeed. If strategically important national services are to be privatised they require (in addition to a real time competitive marketplace, see my previous message) very strict, not-too-easy-to-achieve, and actively enforced SLAs (formalised through legislation). These need to be enforced with more than mere corporate fines; personal sanctions on the directors of failing businesses are needed and these powers need to be exercised frequently.
Ttbomk this was not done to anything like the practically required extent.
Heathrow should be publicly owned & operated - but the services should be competitive.
But however it's set up - the airport will blame the airlines, the airlines will blame the airport.
Harsh though it may seem - I really think making the airlines responsible for passenger's care, hotels, food etc anywhere in the world for circumstances completely outside their control is somewhat unfair - if it's a carrier's fault fair enough but not for acts of god.... or snow...
We dont normally get this much snow and its not normally this cold was -11 here in Hertfordshire on Monday burrgggghhhh.
In most of the other places mentioned they are used to it, so they are prepared and have enough of the right equipment. We dont and that cost a load of cash and then if they did buy it they would probably not use it for years and would be a waste.
I feel sorry for people who are stranded or need to make a desperate trip, but not for people on holiday or going on holiday. The press really are not helpping the situation, sensationlising something that is not that significant. There has been one person I have heard speak on the TV I have felt sorry for and that an american trying to return home and his wife had been taken seriously ill. But he was not winging like most of the Brits that cant go and sit their fat arses on a sunbed and drink sangria. He just said he was sure they were doing their best and that they had everyones safety in mind. Whats a missed holiday vs not having a major aircrash
My 50ps worth, guess not everyones view point and its not my holiday lost.
So no joy on alternate flights today, tried to look at a ski holiday but nothing that we liked the look of at a resonable price so it's blighty for us, also confirmed there's a ~20% shortfall on the insurance. :roll:
So that's it, I'm committed that while I can't stop using BAA airports, I can do everything I can to minimize any spend while there. And try to use gatwick when we can. Won't change much but will make me feel that I'm keeping to my principles
Really, I think you'll find we pay for a service from BAA and they are not providing it, if they taken a business bottom line call to not invest in snow infrastructure while still returning record profits for there shareholders then they should be libel for the financial impacts of that choice, it's not an act of god but a financial choice to put profit ahead of infrastructure, also the reports I've heard of the inhuman treatment of their "customers" while at the airport are what ok, because it's just chav's.......
I understand the fact that no one controls the weather but given that I know both Gatwick and Cardiff airports have handled this situation and got operational much faster than Heathrow I think I've a right to my pov.
Now where did I put that jug of sangria Shazza :roll:
I got snowed in in Southern Italy once (Bari). It was a bit of a freak weather incident with my aircraft and four Harriers. When we asked them whether they had any snow clearing equipment it was a few minutes before they stopped laughing. We just ended up waiting for a melt...
My sympathies go out to the OP. LHR should be better prepared and the fact that they still can't handle the passenger information and looking after their comfort after this has happened before is bound to raise serious questions. Whether they they are answered will be another matter.
Feel really sorry for you fella (unlike others who thank god I have had on ignore for a while, just wish people would not quote them as I have to read their drivel then!) Maybe GIP should also buy LHR as we have kept Gatwick going.
Heathrow operates at 98% of capacity all of the time Gatwick closer to 60% its hardly surprising that when the crap hits the fan the mess is worse at Heathrow.
Really, I think you'll find we pay for a service from BAA and they are not providing it, if they taken a business bottom line call to not invest in snow infrastructure while still returning record profits for there shareholders then they should be libel for the financial impacts of that choice, it's not an act of god but a financial choice to put profit ahead of infrastructure, also the reports I've heard of the inhuman treatment of their "customers" while at the airport are what ok, because it's just chav's.......
I understand the fact that no one controls the weather but given that I know both Gatwick and Cardiff airports have handled this situation and got operational much faster than Heathrow I think I've a right to my pov.
Now where did I put that jug of sangria Shazza :roll:
Not forgetting Gatwick has been shut down twice this month through snow, I don't see why they're getting praised.
There was an interesting bit on 5live last night by their weather expert who said that this spell of cold weather isn't a change to the climate just a spell of 2 or 3 bad winters we get between lots of damp windy ones, any snow clearing equipment is likely to sit unused in a shed most years.
Just been reading that David Cameron offered the military to help clear the snow over Christmas. No doubt exactly what the overstretched armed forces want on top of Afganistan...an Op Deny Christmas to help the public go on holiday. Thankfully even BAA felt too much shame in taking up the offer.
Sorry....probably moving into Bear Pit territory! :D
Took matters into our own hands after 3 cancelled flights and hired a car and drove through the night, from Gatwick back to Aberdeen, leaving at midnight Monday night, making it to Edinburgh by 9am Tuesday and then back to Aberdeen by 2pm after a couple hours rest. Absolutely f*cked. :|
There was usually something to embugger Christmas when I was serving.
There is an interesting article in today's Times about BAA's lack of preparation. I am not sure I entirely trust it as the main protagonists seem to be people with commercial axes to grind (such as a BMI spokesman) but there seems to be some truth behind it.
I had a colleague stuck in Hongkong during the ash cloud (for a week) and he was stuck again in the same place due to this... Made it back home though.
The chief exec of BAA has announced that he is foregoing his bonus for this year.
Whilst it's small recompense for the thousands affected, at least he seems to have a sense of humility. What he should do is redirect his bonus directly into funds to pay for more snow equipment.
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His salary is reported at £944,000 a year. Why does he need a bonus?
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Jim.
The same way that almost every single chief exec of big companies pull in seven figures every year, with huge bonuses on top of very large salaries. It doesn't make it right but that is just the way it is..
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His salary is reported at £944,000 a year. Why does he need a bonus?
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jWG: I understood that this was his total reward, so the bonus is included with this figure.
On another note did anyone see the C4 news report?
it seems that Gatwick do have more snow clearing equipment that any other UK airport and after snow earlier in the year aproved an additional £7M spend. It seems they view this as a cost of doing business.......
I'm interested if any of the folks who have supported Heathrow on this thread could help me understand how with ~£1B profit BAA wouldn't see additional equipment as a nessasery cost. irrespective of my personal experience, nigh on shutting the airport for days while your europen and domestic competitors fair significantly better in similar conditions can't be good business......
I'm not going to defend BAA here, but what I will say is that if the airlines:-
1) Manned their check-in desks
2) Manned their phones
3) Gave reliable information on their websites
and if so many passengers hadn't turned up "on spec" the inconvenience and discomfort would have been mitigated.
Additionally, many of the cancelled outgoing flights have not been due to capacity reductions at Heathrow, but at the destination airports.
It's easy to "bash" BAA but many of their staff are working really hard right now to minimise the impact on passengers.
Andy
Wanted - Damasko DC57
I totally disagree with this sorry .. They made 1 billion profit last year and spent a paltry 1/2 million pounds on snow clearance. This weather is becoming more regular .. there have been several disruptions in the past few years. There is absolutely no excuse not to be prepared for this ... And the way they have designed the airports to cram in retail outlets everywhere at exorbitant prices means that there is nowhere for stranded passengers to hang out .. Take a look at Schipol ... there are loungers everywhere to crash out on ,,, It is time they were taken to task on this.Gatwick is shut till 6am and that on the back of it being closed a few weeks back. Having to deal with a fraction of the passenger numbers also helps them.
The whole of europe has problems not just us, the number of times the heathrow area has had the amount of snow that settled on Saturday in the last thirty years can be counted on the fingers of one hand, its hardly surprising they don't have the same facilities as Moscow.
Anyone who is going to miss their family or holidays of course has my sympathy but I don't see what they could do really
Not according to this
http://www.baa.com/portal/page/BAA+Airp ... e120a____/
Pre-tax loss of £821.9 million for 2009 & a Pre-tax loss of £192.6 million to September this year
Andy
Wanted - Damasko DC57
My flight to Lyon tomorrow has *just* been confirmed as operating so it looks like I will spend Xmas with my wife and son after all.
We were at Heathrow yesterday for my wife and son's flight. They were supposed to fly on Saturday and were lucky they happened to re-book the one flight of the three yesterday that day that actually flew.
We all accept that bad weather is disruptive but the fact of the matter is Heathrow failed to prepare. The snowfall on Saturday has been predicted for a week - and in all honesty wasn't that bad. The roads were kept running well by the fact that councils were prepared - I got held up on the M4 on Friday because there were so many gritters operating, and by Sunday the main roads were all clear in the region.
When we were at Terminal 5 yesterday we sat in Cafe Nero watching planes land and take off on the north runway. That's right, land and take off, 4 days on from the initial snow the south runway was still shut. Every road in the area clear and the south runway still closed. Actually, as we watched, suddenly the queue of planes to take off disappeared as the south runway was finally opened. I'm sorry, but it is totally inexcusable that it took 4 days to open both runways.
On Saturday, we actually set off for the airport, and had barely got to the end of the road when the flight was cancelled. Frustratingly however, as we sat at home we could still hear the odd flight going overhead. I'm convinced that much of the problem was that Heathrow, no doubt under pressure from airlines continued to operate in the conditions too long.
Gatwick gets more snow than Heathrow, pretty simple really. Paris and I forget which German airport they showed on the news was closed also so the myth that Heathrow was alone in being closed is just that, a myth....and Gatwick have closed twice this month despite having all the toys and far fewer flights to deal with.jWG: I understood that this was his total reward, so the bonus is included with this figure.
On another note did anyone see the C4 news report?
it seems that Gatwick do have more snow clearing equipment that any other UK airport and after snow earlier in the year aproved an additional £7M spend. It seems they view this as a cost of doing business.......
I'm interested if any of the folks who have supported Heathrow on this thread could help me understand how with ~£1B profit BAA wouldn't see additional equipment as a nessasery cost. irrespective of my personal experience, nigh on shutting the airport for days while your europen and domestic competitors fair significantly better in similar conditions can't be good business......
As I said in an earlier post I've not seen this much snow (the modest amount that it was) in years, probably only half a dozen times in my life.(Once when I got my racing bike for xmas 1981ish springs to mind). Its hardly surprising firms don't spend tens of millions on equipment that might need replacing before it gets its first use.
Next winter it'll rain and we''ll all be moaning that everything floods.Actually give it just a few days for that.
I remember lots of snowy winters as a child and teenager. I think what is more the case is that we have gotten use to Winters without much snow and have forgotten what it is like.
That said, BAA were seriously under prepared at Heathrow, especially when you bear in mind their comments only a month ago about how they had learned from the last couple of snowy periods.
But its not only BAA, Eurostar took more bookings than seats available for their departures creating the chaos that was seen at St Pancras and they didn't provide much in the way of updates, or refreshments to the people waiting hours in the queue. That was left to the Salvation Army and their mobile catering van.
Too many companies just think about nothing more than bottom line these days and not enough about providing real decent customer care.
As an aside, why do several posters keep referring to "gritters" on the runways?
I should think that grit is the last thing that you'd want near a jet engine on full power
My info came from The Guardian ... and today this .....Not according to this
http://www.baa.com/portal/page/BAA+Airp ... e120a____/
Pre-tax loss of £821.9 million for 2009 & a Pre-tax loss of £192.6 million to September this year
================================================== =====
It is understood that BAA's board rubber-stamped a £10m snow investment programme on Tuesday after Matthews acknowledged that Heathrow's lack of equipment had been exposed by five inches of snowfall on Saturday.
The airport was forced to operate a third of its schedule for several days – affecting nearly one million travellers – as it scrambled to remove thousands of tonnes of snow that had marooned jets at aircraft stands. A BAA source said: "Colin Matthews has made £10m available and has asked the operations team at Heathrow to spend that money, or whatever it takes, to build up the resilience of Heathrow during the winter and restore passenger confidence in the airport."
New equipment is expected to arrive as soon as tomorrow. BAA declined to comment. The £10m investment represents a twenty-fold increase on last year's £500,000 expenditure on snow vehicles – a sum that could expose BAA to accusations of sustained under-investment in its winter preparations.
Airport sources said the 2009 programme was a "top-up" of an already sizeable fleet of snowploughs and other devices. However, a BAA source acknowledged there had been a miscalculation on the amount of equipment needed: "Clearly that additional investment was not enough."
Despite Saturday's snowfall lasting only an hour, BAA did not have enough resources to reopen both runways until Wednesday evening. Not all the £10m will be invested in vehicles, however, with some of money earmarked for specially trained staff to operate machines. BAA is also considering the creation of a cadre of "snow marshals" among existing staff who will be trained to operate snow clearing devices.
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Whatever ............... the truth remains that they should be prepared to deal with these situations .. It is part and parcel of running an airport .... as is taking care of passengers who are delayed.
Also how can some people here blame a passenger going to the airport if he has a chance of taking off ... he knows he might be stuck for days/weeks if he does not get on the flight ......... Poor customer liason and information dissemination is at fault here. And I have no doubt theat the poor BAA staff have done a wonderful job in the last few days // .. but that does not change the fact that they have been dropped in it by their bosses in the first place ..
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