British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures • Hacker News Board

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#101

Post by distances » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

tialaramex wrote: post #92

visarga wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An exact repeat of this situation makes it seem like such failures are becoming routine for BA. An even more 'routine' practice is overbooking. In my latest trip to Warsaw (using Polish Airlines / LOT) they overbooked by 10 people in a plane with less than 100. We bought the tickets one month in advance and had reserved seats, but it seems until you check in you are not guaranteed to be on board. Truly disgusting p…

What's "disgusting" about resource allocation? If the airlines were just required to never do this, they'd obviously have to increase ticket prices, the prices today factor in the reality that they overbook because it works fine most of the time. Ban it and the prices rise because the costs don't change but the number of tickets sold falls. If you're OK with higher ticket prices, you can already buy a more expensive…

I've never heard overbooking announcements with discount airlines (easyJet, Ryanair). I wonder if they just don't overbook or somehow handle the situation better.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#102

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #93

tialaramex wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "disgusting" about resource allocation? If the airlines were just required to never do this, they'd obviously have to increase ticket prices, the prices today factor in the reality that they overbook because it works fine most of the time. Ban it and the prices rise because the costs don't change but the number of tickets sold falls. If you're OK with higher ticket prices, you can already buy a more expensive…

What you're describing might be acceptable if the airline were transparent about it: "This 90 person flight will be overbooked by up to 10 people. Based on data over the last 12 months, there is a 5% chance one or more people in your party of 4 will be involuntarily forced to wait for the next flight, which is 3 hours later. That would lead you to missing your connecting flight, resulting in a total delay of at least…

You either don't understand how involuntarily bumping passengers works, or you don't understand what moral hazard is, or perhaps both.

The airline has to compensate bumped passengers as well as rearranging their flight. It's the same as cancelling the flight as far as that passenger is concerned. As you see in other threads the EU requires up to €600 per passenger monetary compensation as well as any other needs. Far from having an incentive to overbook "as much as possible" this means airlines are probably going to lose money on a flight that involuntarily bumps passengers, because the margins in budget air travel are slim.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#103

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #97

tialaramex wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you're responding to _is_ a government regulation. Specifically the EU's regulation 261/2004. The EU has both Regulations (like this) and Directives. A Directive says that member governments need to make a law that achieves something, but leaves it to them to figure out the details. A Regulation (like 261/2004) doesn't leave it to national government, it's the same across the entire EU. BA were required (as…

What are the penalties for the regulations? Because without sufficiently high costs, the airline has no incentive to comply.

Why would there need to be penalties? What's the plan, start an airline for a few hundred million dollars, screw customers out of compensation, then... Go bankrupt? You aren't allowed to operate airlines that don't obey EU rules in EU countries, there aren't pirate airports with shady airlines that don't obey the laws or anything like that.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#104

Post by elygre » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 7:36 PM UTC

distances wrote: post #101

tialaramex wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "disgusting" about resource allocation? If the airlines were just required to never do this, they'd obviously have to increase ticket prices, the prices today factor in the reality that they overbook because it works fine most of the time. Ban it and the prices rise because the costs don't change but the number of tickets sold falls. If you're OK with higher ticket prices, you can already buy a more expensive…

I've never heard overbooking announcements with discount airlines (easyJet, Ryanair). I wonder if they just don't overbook or somehow handle the situation better.

They (generally) don't overbook. Since their tickets are (generally) not refundable, they get paid even if you don't show up.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#105

Post by zaphirplane » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #62

londons_explore wrote: post #9

A failure of IT systems shouldn't stop the plane flying... The gate staff should just let anyone onboard with a legit ticket or a sufficient story about buying one. Sure, some people might get a free ride, or a few legit ticket holders can't get on because the plane is full, but overall, most passengers end up happy. Simple things like "the pilot can't log in to the HR system so he gets paid for the flight" should be…

> A failure of IT systems shouldn't stop the plane flying... You don't realise how much IT is involved in the process of loading a plane. Just the weight and balance calculation will take a very long time if done manually.

I expected that to be done by the airport and independent of the airline

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#106

Post by namdnay » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

zaphirplane wrote: post #105

namdnay wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A failure of IT systems shouldn't stop the plane flying... You don't realise how much IT is involved in the process of loading a plane. Just the weight and balance calculation will take a very long time if done manually.

I expected that to be done by the airport and independent of the airline

No, it's part of the Flight Management module of the airline Departure Control System, based on the passengers boarded, their age and sex, the weight and containers of the bags checked, and the amount of fuel needed. This prints out a load sheet that must be signed off by the pilot, and then they can load the bags and fuel accordingly

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#107

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 12:23 AM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #56

isostatic wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hwoever every 4-6 passengers they deny boarding is a €2000 fine. For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked. For other flights they normally check visas at the checkin desk, but if you're transferring you usually get visa checked at the gate. Most people have nice simple visas that pretty much anyone can check, a few troublemakers like me rely on more…

> For EU flights especially you still check passports at the gate - indeed it's the only place they are checked. Which countries? I fly a lot NL ES, ES DE and they don't check my passport usually. I do take it because sometimes they ask for it, but mostly they don't. The UK obviously being the outlier; very paranoid with extremely old scanners so security takes a long time, especially at Heathrow.

Some countries have an agreement with each other where the passport check isn’t required. For instance I believe Norway and Sweden have one because they are part of the Nordic Passport Union: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Passport_Union

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#108

Post by FearNotDaniel » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

kenneth wrote: post #49

I was stuck in LHR during the last time they had an identical system outage. I was lucky to be the very first person in line to check-in when the systems went down, so I was the first through when they fixed it 90min later. I had however missed my flight by then. Also, everyone was a lot more pleasant about it in the first wing vs. the mess in the general check-in hall. Seems these issues are not infrequent. BA and L…

I'm not sure you can blame LHR for this. Terminal 2 (Lufthansa/Star Alliance) never seems to suffer from this utter incompetence, it's only BA as far as I can see.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#109

Post by t0mas88 » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:51 AM UTC

distances wrote: post #101

tialaramex wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's "disgusting" about resource allocation? If the airlines were just required to never do this, they'd obviously have to increase ticket prices, the prices today factor in the reality that they overbook because it works fine most of the time. Ban it and the prices rise because the costs don't change but the number of tickets sold falls. If you're OK with higher ticket prices, you can already buy a more expensive…

I've never heard overbooking announcements with discount airlines (easyJet, Ryanair). I wonder if they just don't overbook or somehow handle the situation better.

I flew to an easyJet destination weekly for the bigger part of a year. Heard overbooking announcements at least every other week.

It's just less of a problem for them to find a passenger willing to take a later flight voluntarily. They offer 300 to 500 euro (usually in flight credits), which to an audience that paid around 50 euro for their ticket is a great deal. Especially if it's a holiday trip where they don't mind as much arriving a few hours later.

Re: British Airways passengers facing delays after IT failures

#110

Post by t0mas88 » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

biztos wrote: post #96

tialaramex wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you're responding to _is_ a government regulation. Specifically the EU's regulation 261/2004. The EU has both Regulations (like this) and Directives. A Directive says that member governments need to make a law that achieves something, but leaves it to them to figure out the details. A Regulation (like 261/2004) doesn't leave it to national government, it's the same across the entire EU. BA were required (as…

I wonder, has BA (or any other airline) or the UK government said what the rules for this will be after Brexit? I have a hard time imagining, say, EasyJet doing any sort of compensation they aren't required by law to do.

easyJet has a very significant amount of their operation registered in the EU. So they will be following these rules also after brexit.