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Report from the Heathrow trenches

As of this morning (Saturday 27th May) I am pleased to confirm that the ‘little local IT difficulty’ experienced in the past few days by British Airways does appear to have been resolved.

However worth bearing in mind that Piccadilly Tube is closed 27, 28 and 29 May. This only occurred to us after something unfortunate happened in the road tunnels leading to T3 leading to huge traffic snarl up and our taxi driver suggested dropping us at T5 where we could connect by train for free. This did work - the Elizabeth line and Heathrow Express doing the honours today at least. Needs careful consideration though for those arriving or departing from Heathrow in next couple of days.

The problem we had at T3 was that the luggage belts had malfunctioned so while we were a tad late, nothing much happened for over half an hour until they fixed it. I say nothing - added tension and possibly raised blood pressure for us as our first thought was that our flights had been cancelled - they hadn't but BA were still cancelling some flights this morning.

Having checked, in our bags went to the ‘problem child’ luggage section wheeled there by us. I’m assuming it was because the belt at the far desk where we checked in hadn’t yet been fixed. There were no obvious signs of any knock on from the T5 industrial action and our bags did arrive here in Sardinia (although mine did give me palpitations by attempting to be the last onto the carousel!).

Flight delayed by forty minutes or so on tarmac by traditional summer ‘air traffic control issues’. Full flight and slightly surprised by number of US citizens headed to Sardinia, where we are currently flopped and de-stressing!

Ian

Posted by
2296 posts

We’ve actually been caught in this since Thursday afternoon and today’s flight to Paris is cancelled as well. We are rebooked tomorrow on what is, ironically, the flight we were supposed to be on Thursday.The lines in T5 seem to be better than when we landed on Thursday, but there are still flight cancellations and those who missed flights because of late arrival.

As we sit in the terminal, we are running into the issue of hotel rooms. Many are filled with the overflow from Thursday and Friday. The hotel we had for two days told us as we left today that they are booked solid for tonight. It may have be central London, which isn’t bad when you’ve planned and aren’t fighting jet lag and frustration.

Posted by
522 posts

I guess "ignorance is bliss"--our last full day in Scotland was Thursday, and we didn't watch any news reports on BA's problems (or any other news, for that matter!). On Friday our 10:15 flight from Edinburgh to Heathrow left closer to 11:00; as our connecting flight wasn't scheduled until 3:30 we had a good cushion--enough time to have a relaxing lunch in T5. I had intentionally not scheduled us for the last flight from Edinburgh that would have us at Heathrow "in time" for the connection--good thing as I saw that later flight was cancelled. Our 3:30 departure from Heathrow to PDX was delayed until 5, and we arrived nearly two hours late. The great news is that I still LOVE flying into PDX from Europe! Zipped right through immigration; our luggage came out quickly (and close together), so we were home before dark.

I noticed that the flights were quite full, as I had expected. Only witnessed one instance of passenger impatience; kudos to the flight attendants for their responses.

A blessing in disguise--on our way to Scotland, my husband's golf bag didn't make it onto the flight from LHR to EDI. We had a choice--wait for the later flight to arrive an hour later, or have the bag delivered the next day. We were in no mood to wait as our flight had been delayed an hour and we were ready to get to our apartment, eat, and sleep. Turned out great--received a text just as our walking tour ended that the bag would be delivered in an hour, so we grabbed sandwiches from Oink and went back to the apartment for lunch. Saved us from wrangling that big bag on the Airlink bus!

Posted by
2790 posts

When I landed at Heathrow this morning the line for immigration was a nightmare (terminal 3)

Apparently the iT system that runs e gates crashed. They were coming back on line as we watched but….,

Posted by
1004 posts

When I landed at Heathrow this morning the line for immigration was a nightmare (terminal 3)
Apparently the iT system that runs e gates crashed. They were coming back on line as we watched but….,

Just reading about this snafu here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65731795

Posted by
8879 posts

All of this just reinforces the adage that you shouldn’t have anything that is a “must do” scheduled for arrival day. So sorry for everyone stuck in lines!

Posted by
1043 posts

I haven't flown with BA since I got caught up in the IT system failure in May of 2017. That was some big mess! BA lost our luggage for our entire two-week trip. I will be flying Easyjet into Santorini next week from Gatwick. Have a great time in Sardinia and perhaps write a trip report. I'm curious about the place.

Posted by
133 posts

Currently at Heathrow and things appear to be working well. We flew on BA from Budapest this morning and the flight was great. In fact we arrived 25 minutes. It took just 30 minutes from deplaning to take the airport shuttle, go through the egates and security and find ourselves in the BA North Lounge.

Our connection looks to be on time. There are just a few cancellations on the board. Crossing my fingers that BA's problems are resolved.