VS604 CPT-LHR 10 Dec 2005 (Econ)

Check in was an absolute shambles. We were told we would have to wait in the Y line even though we were gold card pax. We were told that we could not use the lounge, and the check in person could not have been more mardy when I put her right. When I told her to put UC labels on the bags so that we got priority handling I thought she would spit her dummy (she put tags on 2 bags, but not the 3rd). Boarding was equally shambolic with not enough busses being available. This left 50 or so of us standing under an aircraft wing sheltering from the sun while we waited for busses to arrive - so much for security. The priority boarding board was lying on its side at a completely different gate. By this time I was a bit fed up, so had a polite word with the VS uniformed representitive. She was not helpful at first, but then saw my FF card hanging from my bag, and her attitude completely changed. I am afraid this made the red mist decend. I cannot stand the thought that someone would get fobbed off just because they are not a frequent flyer - a damned nerve and not at all the correct attitude to have when wearing the VS uniform. Unfortunately I don't think my angry words helped, but at least I felt better.

Boarded the aircraft about 20 minutes after scheduled pushback. However fueling was not yet complete, so sat down resigned to a further delay. The captain then announced that the tanks were half full, but the airport had run out of fuel. Oh for goodness sake, how can an airport run out of fuel! We then sat around while they redistributed the fuel in the tanks and filed a new flight plan to include a refueling stop.

Eventually we pushed back about an hour or so, maybe longer, late. Breakfast was fine, and the crew could not have been more helpful, going to particular lengths to keep us informed about the problems, and letting us know about mobile availability at Lagos so that we could phone home (that's right I said Lagos [rye smile[B)]], if I had wanted to fly a Nigerian aircraft.......). the Odessy inflight system was next to useless on some channels - I gave up watching a couple of films as the sound could not be heard.

Landed at Lagos and parked up next to a 747 with flat tyres and lichins growing all over it - so this was Nigeria! Refueling was really quick, maybe half an hour - well done to Lagos International Airport. We took off, and it was at this point that one of the crew told us of yesterday's crash - they had carefully kept it quiet to avoid worrying pax - very wise[y]

The rest of the flight was uneventful, with our landing at LHR at about 2300hrs, about 3-4 hours behind schedule. It could have been worse - I believe a number of BA flights were stranded at CPT with no more fuel expected for 2 days[}:)].

So CPT ground staff get a big thumbs down from me. This really should be sorted out by the local VS staff/agents - it really was not good enough. The cabin crew get a big thumbs up for keeping us informed, and for getting us home despite the fuel problems (which were not VS's fault).

[buns]

Sailor

Once again, thanks for another succinct report.

The trials and tribulations of CPT, leaves one aghast that VS can let itself down with the actions of one person. Stacking this up with the lack of fuel (as you say not down to VS) I am surprised that you still do not have the 'red mist'

all the best

[ChuckC]

Sailor,
This will likely be a trip you'll remember for some time. But for the cabin crew, it would have been a complete nightmare. Glad that you made it home safely.

BTW which airline's aircraft were you parked next to at Lagos?

Regards,
Chuck-

Not sure on the aircraft. But being the total VS geek, I of course whipped out my trusty phone and got a quick snap! I will transfer and upload the snap and cross reference it here just a soon as I have worked out how to transfer, upload and cross reference.

Get the Ground Staff's name and complain. Quite simply it isn't good enough.

[HighFlyer]

Gosh .... what a flight [:#]

[Scrooge]

sounds like the flight from hell,at least in UC you could be kicking it in a suite,in Y,wow,rather you than me.

Ah well Sailor, at least when you were parked up in Lagos you could at least relax with the thought that you were aboard a British registered Boeing 747-400. It doesn't get much better than that, regardless of the location!

Regards

John

Hey Sailor,

We were in CPT at the same time, although thankfully I wasn't on your flight (I was a week earlier)

We also had a nightmare boarding, the Virgin desk seemed disorganised to say the least but the real problem was security and passport control. The SAA and BA flight were delayed by nearly 2 hrs and I think we left about an hour late. I was speaking to one of the airport officials and they said they have the same problem every morning. 3 London flights depart nearly an hour apart from each other, some mornings nearly 1200 pax and they are not given the staff to process all these people. Some of the passengers I was chatting to in the secuirty queue (which took 90 mins BTW) said next time they would fly down via Jnb.

CPT airport seems to have huge problems which is such a shame. As VS staff though I have to say I was embarrassed by the disorganisation at check in. No one seemed to know what was going on and DIY check in was a complete joke. I wonder if other airlines experience similar problems, BA certainly left people behind because they could not get through security quickly enough. Cape Town is such a great destination, its a pity this is your last impression of South Africa though, chaos and disorganisation and no one seems to want to take responsibility for any of it.

Interesting news story about the ongoing fuel problems at CPT here.

This sort of confusion doesn't bode well for the proposed daily service - let's hope they can dispatch a trobleshooter to sort it all out before then.

Thanks for the TR Sailor.

Phil

Welcome back Sailor

Can't help thinking this must be a 'Capetown thing'! [:?]

When I flew back from CPT back in 1999 we had a - yes you've guessed it, 4 hour delay due to no available fuel (this was on BA though)

As an aside, I made sure that this was the last time I flew BA longhaul as the CC service was 'below appalling' on both the flight out and back [n]

Originally posted by southernbelle
Hey Sailor, We were in CPT at the same time, although thankfully I wasn't on your flight

Excuse me! What's so bad about flying with me?[;)]

Everything you say is right though. It is such a shame that CPT is a shambles. As you say it leaves an unpleasant aftertaste, and I must admit our discussion on the way home did turn to wondering if this was an indication of the way that SA is going - disorganised, inefficient infrastructure. The last thing I want to do is turn this into a political debate (so let's not go there). My point being that this sort of thing, perhaps combined with some other events while we were on holiday, led us to question the direction the country is heading, and it is a great pity that the question was prompted (fairly or not) in our minds.

99

[fozzyo]

Originally posted by southernbelle
I wonder if other airlines experience similar problems, BA certainly left people behind because they could not get through security quickly enough.

Oh dear - that really isn't good.

Mat xxx

Hey Guys

I was on the same flight in Upper Class as you Sailor and I whole heartedly agree with you about the ground staff at CPT - they are completely unprepared and very surly even for UC passengers! I know VA have had problems before and I believe they occassionally fly VA staff down from Joburg to handle the CPT flights but maybe this isnt working too well either

I have to say the flight wasnt great and whilst I did have the suite to kick back in the staff were quickly out of hours and so the service in Upper Class was pretty much non existant after each meal service - we werent allowed the freedom service as they thought that they would run out of food and the staff would also not be around to cook it (we therefore just had a large breakfast on take off from CPT and a lunch on take off from Lagos) and then all the staff had to go sleep which I found strange. The only UC staff member that seemed to do any number of hours was the IFBT!! Incidentally the new food menu was better and so too was the selection of wines (although the wine was only really on offer on the leg from Lagos to LHR and then only at the time of the meal service [V])

I do agree that the staff were 100% professional and communicated the issues really well but it was not the best flight ever. Interesting none of the crew in UC mentioned the free phone service in Lagos to call ahead which I could have done with as my mobile died on the ground at Cape Town!!

One thing I found strange was that VA knew that staff would go out of hours on this flight before they left CPT and they would run out of food too in UC so I dont understand why they didnt stop in Joburg (rather than Lagos) where they have catering facilities to get more food on board and where they have crew on hand to cover or swap with. I have asked the Premier Team the same question and will let you know what response I get on this.

I guess things could have been worse - one of my friends left on the Lufthansa flight from CPT that night to get back to LHR, had to refuel in Kimberley, got delayed there for 5 hours, missed his connection in Frankfurt and Lufthansa still havent quite located his bags yet some2 days later!!

Well you could have invited my up to the bar for a drink Newby!!![;)]

We got an extra snack service at the back towards the end of the flight, so loads of grub for Y! Sorry to hear you guys went hungry. The staff seemed to be present trough out the flight, although maybe they were covering both cabins and taking rest in shift.

The phone service in Lagos was not free - sorry to have mislead you. They mearly confirmed if there was network availibility for Vodaphone and O2 contracts (and some of the other common ones I think). I would have leant you my phone had you said!

99

Newby,

Virgin would not have crew on hand at JNB to cover an incident like this as crew down in JNB are already on tight hours so it really would not have solved the situation.

In order for the cabin crews flight duty period to be extended they must have 3 hours horizontal rest. Only the 'required' crew would need to have this so there would always be crew surplus to requirements. That may explain why the IFBT did not take a break. Had the crew not had adequate rest the likely solution would be to night stop all passengers in Lagos/JNB whilst a replacement crew were flown out or the crew had adequate rest to continue the journey. This is a CAA requirement, not the crew just demanding a break. I think given the circumstances the FSM and the Captain made the correct decision but obviously it does impact on service. However I am sure the majority of customers would have wanted to get home asap.

I know staff from ops/crewing read this so I stand to be corrected on Flight Duty period and solutions for such a situation but I do think, as I say, the correct decision was made in this instance.

Originally posted by southernbelle
Had the crew not had adequate rest the likely solution would be to night stop all passengers in Lagos/JNB whilst a replacement crew were flown out or the crew had adequate rest to continue the journey. I think given the circumstances the FSM and the Captain made the correct decision but obviously it does impact on service. However I am sure the majority of customers would have wanted to get home asap.

I would have thought every passenger wanted to get home ASAP. Certainly the Rear Admiral and I were very glad not to have had to suffer an overnight in Lagos [:$]. While it meant an early morning drive through the fog, it was still infinitely preferrable to get home to our nice warm bed. Of course some pax missed connections, but that is always going to be the case in a situation like this, and at least they were at LHR ready for a good early start the next day.

I am sure the crew took it in turns to get their heads down - there were always staff on hand. I think it important to remember that the crew's primary duty is the safety of pax, and to fulfil this role they need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed. I would be perfectly happy to sacrifice service to make sure the crew got the rest they needed to get us home safely on the right day (in fact with in a few hours of schedule).

The fuel problem was not of VS's making, and I got the very strong impression that the crew did everything in their power to make the best of a poor situation for us the pax.

I agree with you Sailor and we were happy to sacrifice service levels to make sure we got home withouth having to transit in Lagos although the price of my ticket didnt change as a result!! Incidentally Sailor if I had known you were on the flight I would have happily got you up to the bar for a drink - I should probably check the upcoming flights section more frequently in future [:#].

Southernbelle thanks for the info and I totally understand the situation - I didnt mean to imply that the crew were demanding rest breaks un-necessarily as I am aware of the CAA rules - the crew did a great job under difficult circumstances.

Is this the 747 you saw in Lagos? It's been there forever!

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/889820/M/

Yep, that's the one. We were parked just to the starboard of it.

One question.

Why do cabin crew 'go out of hours' or 'have to go to sleep' ? They are essentially waiters/waitresses who, on a long haul flight, are hardly worked to the bone. The safety part of their job is nothing more than having to stand at a door and shout at passengers to get off (which, I'm sure is very demanding at the time).

In a situation like this why can't they rotate through the sleeping areas just like the pilots (who DO need rest).

John

JAT74L:

Totally agree with your sentiments. Do not cabin crews have appropriate allocaed periods of rest prior to rostered flights? I do understand that unplanned 'situations' can ocur but as JAT47L says, why can't cabin crew 'rotate through the sleeping areas.

This may well be an inflamatory subject and I have no desire to stoke the fires, but I think the situation is one which needs to be understood by the paying public so that there can be informed debate.[:)]

[Scrooge]

oh my,I can see where this is going to go [B)]


Ok just to set some things straight,FA are neither waiters/waitresses.

the primory job of an FA is saftey,everything else come's second.

Now the reason for crew rest breaks are pretty simple.

Try doing your job for 11-14 hrs straight.Your judgement will be impaired,you'll start making mistakes and in the situtaion where you are helping to look after 300-400 people the powers that be don't want this.

From what I understand,the crew did rotate their breaks so yes the service was lower than it could of been,but the alternative was for the plane to stay in Lagos and the crew spend the night there.

Tinkerbelle ,

100% agree with what you say, but that is the job. Your expertise is our safety, but am I correct that it involves much more than that from your prospective!!

Or is service an added extra[:)]

Not having a go honestly, as I fully respect the reponsibilties you have

Iain

Let's calm down a bit guys[:)] I'm sure that passengers - and, by default, particularly those on this site - do fully appreciate the efforts put in by crews. However, is this not a choice thing? Plumbers choose to be plumbers, bank clerks choose to be bank clerks ........

The point I'm trying (not very well) to make is that the majority of the working population choose and do not have it thrust upon them.