VS012 BOS-LHR 18 JAN 13 (Upper Class)

This is a Trip Report from the Upper Class cabin

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A tale of two airlines pt.2, or how i survived the BA/heathrow snow debacle.

Friday morning & a check online, followed by a text from VS, and a very nice phone call confirmed that VS12 has left heathrow 2 hours late due to the weather and subsequently would be leaving boston at 21:30 instead of 19:50. No fault of the airline and it meant there was plenty of time to enjoy the small but perfectly turned out boston CH.

Whilst sitting in the CH it became apparent that VS had filled the flight up by scooping up BA pax who had been left high & dry by the decision to simply cancel their flight from LHR to BOS rather than re-scheduling. Talking to crew on board & it became apparent that BA had been cancelling huge sections of their schedule all day but that the airfield was fully operational. Great news ahead of my connecting BA flight to MAN on arrival the next morning - more on that topic later..

Got settled into my suite & i have to say if you're not bothered about a window (& who would be on a night flight?), 9k is a very private seat indeed. It's tucked well into the corner, no neighbour behind & the bulkheads overlap so that you can't see the bar area at all. Plus due to the position of the overhead bins, it gets a whole slightly smaller bin all to itself. I opted just for a hot choc after takeoff & got bedded down for another short sub-6 hour flight.

To be continued...

Can't wait Hat..

Have been following the news to see how the airlines have been dealing with the snow here. I have to say that things are going a lot smoother than last time, shame for BA though, good for VS

Cheers for posting

Thanks for the TR.

BA do love to cancel flights at the drop of a hat it seems.

[honey lamb]

Thanks for the TR.

BA do love to cancel flights at the drop of a hat it seems.

They do indeed. When I was in Tokyo a couple of years ago, there were reports on television of snow in the UK and flight cancellation. I was apprehensive that our VS flight would be cancelled but we soon found out that it had taken off. However BA cancelled and our flight was chock-a-block with BA passengers!

In defence of the OP who compared the two DXB flights, that was like for like on a level playing field. Lets be fair here VS have to get about 20 flights a day out of LHR compared to BA's 300 so when snow disrupts they are always going to have bigger problems. However due to their alliance partners and multiple daily flights to cities(I believe Boston has two BA flights a day and 1 code share with AA) they are able to cancel and re- book far more easily than VS where when the wheel comes off it can mean far more severe dalays. Lets not forget the recent posts where passengers have been complaining that due to schedule changes their flights have be changed by days. I am not defending BA but we VS flyers have for years been using BA to cove for the falling standards of VS.

soon as we touched down i switched the phone on to find our scheduled 11:10 BA to MAN had been cancelled,but with hourly flights i was confident we would simply get bumped onto the next available, assuming they were consolidating light loads. With no BA presence in T3 & the prospect of spending several hours in T5 i decided the best option was to head to Revivals to see what the next steps were.

I asked the Concierge to find out what she could whilst freshening up & getting a bit of breakfast, Good to see the egg royale on the menu & the lounge had continued the refit i saw in November. New seating & upholstery, including a pair of huge red sofas in the middle of the room. It was very quiet though, in the 1.5 hours we were there i only noticed 2-3 more pax using the lounge. Maybe the weather meant people weren't wanting to hang around?

After 15 mins or so the concierge came back to tell us that BA had booked us onto the 8pm flight - & we were lucky to get that! How they can think that PAX are going to hang around for 12 hours to travel 250 miles beggars belief. A quick discussion on what to do next sent the limo arranger off to find a driver and the concierge back onto the phone to see if there was avaialability on the Leeds flight due out at 2pm. Both came back with good news this time - we could take a Tristar to Kings Cross where trains were avaiable every 30 mins to Leeds or alternatively there were seats on the Leeds flight. Given that BA still seemed to be operating rolling delays/cancellations & no guarantee the leeds flight would leave we opted for the train. 20 mins later we were in a car speeding to Kings Cross & by 11:30 we were pulling away for a 2.5 hour journey up to Leeds. A quick transfer there onto the local train & i was home before the LBA flight - which it turned out had been delayed 45 mins.

So the moral of the story? BA may well be hitting the marks at the top end of the long haul market with improved customer service, but when push comes to shove they are far to quick to pull the plug & leave their customers to fend for themselves. I know we were only travelling domestic economy but at no point was there any contact from BA, no usefull links on their web site or any phone support.

I know the problems of recent days are hard to prep for, and heathrow's issues are indicative of an airport creaking at the seams, but other airlines have managed around the constraints & kept their passengers moving - surely that's what an airline is for?

Good to hear the Revivals staff came through and filled in the gaps BA left behind. Got to love that kind of flexibility when pax are faced with onward delays.

Top notch service VS, top notch now if only it were consistent