Having to negotiate New gates: LHR

Is it any wonder people hate Heathrow?

Was on VS901 from Narita on Saturday and we got to LHR a little early. There was a Qatar airways plane in our gate, so we sat on the taxiway for a little. The pilot eventually came on to say they'd 'negotiated' a new gate.

Now, to me, this sounds ludicrous.... Airlines shouldn't have to negotiate anything when it comes to getting a gate. We all pay passenger tax to use the airport and I guess VS also pay BAA as well. Surely, so long as you are not hours early / late, you should get a gate.

Whilst we are on the topic of gates, why is Hellthrow (my new name for it) the only airport I know of where you don't actually know the gate at checkin?

Please, if there are higher powers at work, direct the biggest lump of rock you can at Hellthrow. The sooner it's completely redesigned the better....

[mcmbenjamin]

Originally posted by woggledog

Whilst we are on the topic of gates, why is Hellthrow (my new name for it) the only airport I know of where you don't actually know the gate at checkin?

I think you answered your own question! Airlines want a plane to be on the ground as short as possible. MANY things happen last minute that may cause a change a aircraft type; low outbound and inbound loads with an over booking on another flight, MX plane. If you do not say what gate you are out of it forces travelers to be at the right gate!

Originally posted by woggledog
Is it any wonder people hate Heathrow?

Was on VS901 from Narita on Saturday and we got to LHR a little early. There was a Qatar airways plane in our gate, so we sat on the taxiway for a little. The pilot eventually came on to say they'd 'negotiated' a new gate.

Now, to me, this sounds ludicrous.... Airlines shouldn't have to negotiate anything when it comes to getting a gate. We all pay passenger tax to use the airport and I guess VS also pay BAA as well. Surely, so long as you are not hours early / late, you should get a gate.

Whilst we are on the topic of gates, why is Hellthrow (my new name for it) the only airport I know of where you don't actually know the gate at checkin?

Please, if there are higher powers at work, direct the biggest lump of rock you can at Hellthrow. The sooner it's completely redesigned the better....

Oh, and when you're parked at the freekin' gate and have to wait fifteen minutes for someone to actually turn up to operate the airbridge.

H

This morning we waited in the stack for an age,guidance onto the stand,the steps,the bus to the terminal.Must say passports checked very quickly and Pink elephant excellent as always, home(140 miles)in 3hours from touch down [y]

Originally posted by Howard Long

Originally posted by woggledog
Is it any wonder people hate Heathrow?

Was on VS901 from Narita on Saturday and we got to LHR a little early. There was a Qatar airways plane in our gate, so we sat on the taxiway for a little. The pilot eventually came on to say they'd 'negotiated' a new gate.

Now, to me, this sounds ludicrous.... Airlines shouldn't have to negotiate anything when it comes to getting a gate. We all pay passenger tax to use the airport and I guess VS also pay BAA as well. Surely, so long as you are not hours early / late, you should get a gate.

Whilst we are on the topic of gates, why is Hellthrow (my new name for it) the only airport I know of where you don't actually know the gate at checkin?

Please, if there are higher powers at work, direct the biggest lump of rock you can at Hellthrow. The sooner it's completely redesigned the better....

Oh, and when you're parked at the freekin' gate and have to wait fifteen minutes for someone to actually turn up to operate the airbridge.

H

We had the same problem, landed in to LHR T1 yesterday and had to wait 15mins for a dispatcher to operate the airbridge! [V]

Originally posted by Howard Long
Oh, and when you're parked at the freekin' gate and have to wait fifteen minutes for someone to actually turn up to operate the airbridge.

Were you on BA? A wait for the stand parking guidance to be switched on, or someone to work the bridge, seems to be common on BA, especially at T1 - the usual reason people cite is because they don't seem to have enough dispatchers and other essential airside personnel.

The stands at Heathrow, especially T3, are used quite intensively:

When I was waiting at the Clubhouse for the VS19, looking at the alleyway of stands next to the windows, I saw an SAS 737 push off one of the stands (327 or 329), and do a long push up the alley to allow an arriving Air Canada 767 straight onto the stand.

But, at the same time, an aircraft can occupy that stand for 3-4 hours at a time if the turnround is a long one, but not long enough to warrant re-positioning the aircraft to a remote for turnround servicing.

Mike

[preiffer]

My fundamental issue with all of this is simple:

It's not as if they don't KNOW the aircraft is on its way (and has been for XXX hours!) [ii]

Silverjet like to call it Heathslow

Originally posted by preiffer
My fundamental issue with all of this is simple:

It's not as if they don't KNOW the aircraft is on its way (and has been for XXX hours!) [ii]

EXACTLY!

Paul, surely you're not suggesting that LHR actually plans ahead[:0]

Returning from DXB this month, we had to wait for around 20-30mins for an ANA 744 to vacate the gate.

45.

Originally posted by woggledog


Was on VS901 from Narita on Saturday and we got to LHR a little early.

I just booked this flight for next month - will you be doing a TR? Looking forward to it if you do.

I probably won't. However, on the way back there were several seats in PE with broken IFE. service was great, however, especially on the way out. One particular CC greeted me personally due to being gold. Very nice touch....

The bento sets available for lunch were nice, although you don't get the yummy Gu desert (although the cabin crew were nice enough to get me one )

Lastly, no probs with cabin crew sourcing a cappacino from the UC bar

Originally posted by mike-smashing
Were you on BA? A wait for the stand parking guidance to be switched on, or someone to work the bridge, seems to be common on BA, especially at T1 - the usual reason people cite is because they don't seem to have enough dispatchers and other essential airside personnel.

Have suffered this on BA (T1 & T4), VS, SQ and EK, although BA T4 was the worst I've ever had.

Also, have had to wait on a taxiway on occasion for a ground marshall for access to certain gates. A year or so ago an SAA 744 got stuck at a gate at T1 waiting for the right ground marshall, and we waited on the tarmac for over an hour for it to get out. I am sure others behind were far more inconvenianced than we were.

A couple of weeks ago on a Sunday, I had a 3/4 hour delay getting into LHR allegedly due to ATC restrictions. It wasn't clear if this was local LHR ATC restrictions or more general. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Go figure.

Typical of the house of cards that Heathrow is. There is no room for any small problem. Which makes it so pathetic that a basic thing like getting an airbridge operator to the gate will inevitably cause a domino effect of delays.

Howard

Originally posted by woggledog
I probably won't. However, on the way back there were several seats in PE with broken IFE. service was great, however, especially on the way out. One particular CC greeted me personally due to being gold. Very nice touch....

The bento sets available for lunch were nice, although you don't get the yummy Gu desert (although the cabin crew were nice enough to get me one )

Lastly, no probs with cabin crew sourcing a cappacino from the UC bar

Thanks for the mini-review. If the tier points from our bmi jaunt last weekend kick in, we will be gold just before our Tokyo trip. Used miles to upgrade to UCS. I hope that we have the great service you experienced.

Originally posted by VS045
Paul, surely you're not suggesting that LHR actually plans ahead[:0]

Returning from DXB this month, we had to wait for around 20-30mins for an ANA 744 to vacate the gate.

45.

In may on the same route we had to wait 45 min for a BA 744 to move on. Eventually we were given a different gate. May have been BA being awkward, but still....

Hi all,

sorry for the delay in responding to this one, have been away, TR coming soon.

As an LHR Air Traffic Controller with 7 years experience, the general public have very little idea how an airport or ATC works, many of the statements in this thread confirm that.

The simple case regarding Heathrow is that it's ground facilities, runways, taxiways and stands are way over capacity. This situation will not change until at least 2012 when Heathrow East opens. T5 will initally make things worse with all the upheavel in the other terminals.

To say 'they've known the aircraft is coming for x hours' isn't the point, they also no that another 44 aircraft are coming in this hour, but as long as the airlines and BAA are willing to let the situation continue, passengers will suffer the boredom/misery of holding in stacks, waiting on the ground for a gate or sat at the holding point for half an hour.

A couple of other things, just because it's a sunny day with blue sky's there are 20-30 reasons that we can lose runway capacity at Heathrow that will knock on and cause delays, I appreciate it's frustrating though when you don't have the information.

BA are a shambles, they do not employ enough dispatchers, tug crews and ground support staff to adequately man their operation. They constantly block the runway holding points as they aren't ready because the flight crews don't have the final loadsheets from the company and they block taxiways and cul de sacs because they can't park as there is no one to meet them at the gate. They own 42% of the slots at heathrow, so when they mess up it cascades down and delays every other airline!

In ATC we do our absolute best to keep the airfield moving, but many many things are out of our control, it frustates us as much as it does the passenger.

Yellow Snow[y]

And welcome to my world from last Friday where I arrived at the Gate for VS 009 to find no aircraft. We were then escorted downstairs to a waiting bus except we had to then wait 20 minutes outside the bus (Whlst jets taxied past us) for a driver followed by a 10 minute ride to a remote stand near Terminal 5 !

All that meant we missed the take off slot, and had to wait a further 24 minutes to push.

Couple that with 40 minutes to get through Security and 'The Shoe Carnival' is it any wonder that the likes of maxJet Eos, and Silverjet look a good bet right now.

BAA really do need to make some drastic improvements and quickly.

Hi Andrew,

with your VS009 flight, in that situation, that was purely Virgin's fault, they knew it was a remote stand for at least an hour or two prior, so to not have busses and drivers is poor.

As for missing slots and otherthings LHR related, I've given up trying to encourage VS flight crew to come and visit the tower to see why things are done, what they can do to help and how our hands are tied. After giving out many business cards on flights, I've had the sum interest of zero.

It's not just the general public who don't understand things, earlier on this week (can't remember the day) the Boston flight, parked over in T5, had a slot that was about 35 minutes away, I'd spoken to the flight crew and they were going to be ready about 5 minutes late, about 25 minutes before the slot, this would've been perfect as there was about 20 minutes of departures at the holding point. It all fell apart when the Virgin dispatcher sent a flight delay message to flow control in Brussels with the 5 minutes delay previously mentioned. If the flight wasn't slotted this was the correct thing to do as it keeps the flow system as efficient as possible, if the computer has up to date pushback times for all aircraft. However, if your flight is slotted you should never send a delay message to Brussels, as the slot computer will, 97% of the time, think you are going to miss your original slot and allocate a new one.
This is exactly what happened to the Boston flight, it picked up a 90 minute delay, through a new slot, because the Virgin dispatcher didn't understand how the system worked![ii]

Believe me if I didn't have a grade 1 trim, I'd pull my hair out daily at work, that said it's still a great job, just a joke of an airport.

YS[y]

Interesting to read the workings of the airport, thanks for sharing.

[Decker]

As NapaMAtt says - thanks for sharing - this is one of the joys of V-Flyer!

[Decker]

Yellow Snow has kindly presented us with the opportunity to Ask an LHR ATC Bod

[Decker]

Thanks to a very kind offer from Biggles we know have an "on staff" baggage bod - see http://www.v-flyer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21158