BA cancels 1,000 Heathrow flights

That particular theme runs across all businesses. We have a new all singing all dancing accounting/MIS system at work, which is basically cr*p. Unfortunately it was the CEO’s bright idea and everyone has to put up with it and make it work. This degenerates into user committees, where everyone tries to sound upbeat and praises the system to get onside with the CEO. The committees are over large and dysfunctional – everyone is trying to delegate their responsibility so their own backside is covered.

And we employ less than 200 oeople in 3 offices. God knows what an organisation like BA has to go through.

Its some kind of an inventory system for businesses, however BA decided they wanted it too, despite 2 or 3 airlines having bought it previously and ditching it wthin weeks due to its dismal failure. Nevertheless they spent several millions investing in it, and now as OneLeft says its completely screwing up all the inventories to the point of having several unserviceable aircraft each day, and this is across all fleets.

Thanks OneLeft. A friend of mine and I often go through load factors for various days, and in general it would seem operations don’t quite know what they are on about in terms of the aircraft scheduled. Admitadley there are other factors to take into consideration, and also it is the summer and therefore space on flights will be at a premium for every airline (generally!)

Don’t get me started on EWS 😛

However crazy it may sound, the airline seems to be making every possible effort to ensure that as few passengers are affected as possible. They are hoping that the passengers whose flights are cancelled will settle for being transferred onto another flight at a later or earlier time.

Not sure why this has suddenly made the news, it has been on the BA website for about a fortnight now. (Perhaps nothing happening in the world today!) The plan is to cancel flights on routes with enough frequency and capacity to accomodate those already booked on the cancelled flights.

Mark L just about has it right (as always), although I’m not sure about empty 767’s on any route. Every flight I have done for months has been chokka regardless of aircraft type.

There is another problem which is the new computer system at engineering which has been a complete farce and has led to quite a number of aircraft being grounded. And the whole thing has been made worse by endless slot delays at LHR every time it looks like rain.

Also Danairboy, as I have explained on other threads, it is charter airlines that are obliged to operate the flights they have sold. Although scheduled carriers would reasonably be expected to operate all of their flights, they are in fact at liberty to cancel flights at any time without giving reason.

1L.

Not really, they have the capacity they are just utilising it really badly. The A321s come online next month, and hopefully that will see some useful reorganisation of their resources.

The problem is a general lack of staff (including pilots) a general lack of capacity at Heathrow (Poor operations planning, filling A319s on routes suitable for 767s and running empty 767s 5 times a day to Frankfurt :rolleyes: ) and the huge problems involved with the ridiculous overworking of the entire Heathrow system.

As we saw a few weeks ago, when things go wrong they go very very wrong, and these latest plans appear to be just a way of “loosening the belt” on an every increasingly bloated system. It may also be the operations controllers gaining a brain cell. Well I can dream 😉

bet they’re regretting getting rid of their 757s so quick

The problem is a general lack of staff (including pilots) a general lack of capacity at Heathrow (Poor operations planning, filling A319s on routes suitable for 767s and running empty 767s 5 times a day to Frankfurt :rolleyes: ) and the huge problems involved with the ridiculous overworking of the entire Heathrow system.

As we saw a few weeks ago, when things go wrong they go very very wrong, and these latest plans appear to be just a way of “loosening the belt” on an every increasingly bloated system. It may also be the operations controllers gaining a brain cell. Well I can dream 😉

BA is suffering a PR nightmare at the moment. That Eddington bloke has lost the plot, staff shortages, aircraft shortages, cancellations, delays etc etc. What with his hatred of Concorde it seems the Aussie is intent on recking our flag carrier.

Cancellations due to commercial reasons is something one used to expect from charter carriers not scheduled airlines who are supposed to run to published timetables regardless of the load factor!

What’s wrong with them? The plot does appear to have been misplaced.

If they don’t have enough slack, then either cancel unprofitable flights or else acquire more planes. But if BA was cancelling unprofitable flights, I would expect it to say so – it sounds good to investors. So presumably they are cancelling profitable flights, rather than increase the fleet. I don’t understand the logic.