demise of XL and the spiral of airline demise

I was planning to write a slightly jokey entry about the funnier side of my recent experiences in Russia, however with Ike destroying the houses of friends of mine in the US and 1000's of XL customers struggling to get home, I feel I need to move more serious comment.
As usual step forward Mega travel hero Simon Calder , who in 8 minutes on 5live this morning, explained clearly the issues around refunds from Atol bonds, Credit card bookings, direct airline bookings etc. Until that time, I have heard no clear explanation of the different routes to refund. This is just the info people need - not endless film of crying passengers repeated every 30 minutes.

Quite rightly Simon also pointed the airlift underway to bring the 80,000 XLers home was another Dunkirk as claimed by some in the Media - there real heros under fire bought UK troops home - I do not believe the CAA efforts come anywhere near.

However brickbats to Simon too, for joining the malaise of talking down the airlines and the survival rates. We should know Simon is your list the same as Willie Walsh's ? Which airline are you travelling next sunday Simon? I too am on small airline on Monday 0650 (I paid by credit card) ...I wonder whther I will be stranded up North ?

Terminal 5 & BA

Had my first trip thru heathrow terminal 5 on Wednesday night.

Pretty impressive structure - check in & bag drop went well but security will be a nightmare when the terminal gets up to full capacity-

• because of the layout with domestic / foriegn flights mixing, like Manchester airport, they have to photograph all domestic passengers - the queues will be tragic when it get busy.
• The baggage x ray machines will also slow everyone - they have an automated tray return system, which failed 3 times in the 10 mins I was waiting to go thru a particular machine.

BA were awful as ever - 3 hours delayed to Newcastle - the plane was declared unservicable by the engineers as soon as it landed. It took the gate staff 45 mins to be honest with us the passengers and start looking for a new plane. The new plane was smaller than the original, so they had bump off the last 4 rows of passengers (luckily I had moved forward on check in !) and then the weather turned foul, so we had a further 45 mins on the ground.

trip to the US

Manic Trip to Houston and San Antonio lasting 10 days - here are a few travel observations:

1. Normal BA inconsistency - Crew Gat-Hou were crap, no service ethic and they even ran out salads. Crew back Hou -> Lhr first class - served everything promptly and regularly -supplied coffee and Port throughout the night trip back to LHR.
2. Recommend the martinis at Timpano
3. If you drive from Houston to San Antonio you must stop off in Luling at Luling Bar-B-Q, 709 E. Davis St.Luling, Texas.
4. Fly Continental back into Houston - it makes transfer across to international flights very easy across George Bush inetrnational airport
5. Flew back into LHR terminal 4 - Bags only took 15 mins (yes 15 mins and BA didn't lose anything) but BE WARNED - Heathrow Express doss not run to terminal 4, so it's some other service about once very 25 mins back to the main station at Terminals 1,2 &3
6. Terminal 1 is now bearable now BA has left it. BMI tried losing my bag on the last leg back to Leeds thanks to "stuck baggage belts"

BA Crew standards

Went to Abu Dhabi for the 5 days this week using British Airways - I was stunned by the difference between the 2 crews.
Going out on the Monday, we were an hour late due technical difficulties, but the crew from the purser downwards were incredibly helpful - they regularly explained what was going on and did their best to make everyone comfortable. As a Goldcard holder travelling further back in the plane than normal, I was still picked for exemplary service including extra G&Ts, but generally the service was excellent, particularly to those travelling with younger children.
Coming back to London overnight last night, the crew were from the other end of the spectrum - zero service ethic and treated us like cattle.
BA will never succeed with such inconsistent approach to customer service.

Change of carrier - can other countries keep track?

Those of us ex BA Connect travellers now with flybe are becoming increasingly confused as to actually which airline we are travelling.
Last Tuesday caught the flybe flight to Dusseldorf fromSouthampton - this route was announced before the BA Connect takeover. They have used mainly Dash 8 sprinkled with BAE146s on the routing, so I was somewhat shocked to suddenly find myself on a BA embraer 145 with obviously a BA crew on board; despite their uniforms, confirmed by the "why don't you check out our cheap flights on http://www.ba.com..... www.flyba.com.......I mean wwww.flybe.com ....",well she got there in the end.
( I actually asked the hostesses what it was like now they had crossed over to the "dark side" - they said it was ok but were shocked at the lack of attention to detail and disorganisation - they seem amazed that Flybe managed to operate a service at all).
Anyway on arrival at dusseldorf, it was the ground crew that amused me you could see all these Germans trying to work out what BA plane from Southampton was doing in that slot. Much shrugging of shoulders, mystified looks at paperwork, should they provide a valet service etc. anyway they figured it out in the end and got us on the bus without too much delay.

Update 21/4 - since I wrote this the last three domestic flights I have taken with Flybe have all used BA Connect Embraers - the crew still remain amazed at Flybe's disorganisation.

Heathrow Terminal 1

Arrived into Heathrow Terminal 1 on an early BA flight from Dusseldorf at about 0745 Friday morning.

• 5 of 6 of the travelators between my arrival gate and Passport control were out of order.
• Only 1 person checking UK passport holders.
• Baggage carousel display system not working to say where bags would arrive.
• all luggage seemed to be arriving on a single carousel.

Welcome to Heathrow !