BA's time keeping remains at its normal lamentable standard, as my girlfriend and her fellow passengers waiting on board their 13:50 London to Stockholm flight on Wednesday can attest to.
The passengers waited in the plane for around 45 minutes or so, as there seemed to be some confusion on the flight deck as to how much fuel the plane was carrying.
Start with a view and then find the stories to match. Always works best. But...this doesn't really amount to much of a story does it!
ReplyDeleteObviously I must hav had different experiences and just found in my travels BA to be pretty good compared to others.
Dear Ken,
ReplyDeleteThe fuel on board is measured by a fairly complicated capacitive system. As I'm sure you can imagine the consequences of running out of fuel, the performance of the system is crosschecked after refueling by comparing the amount of fuel the bowser pumped into the aircraft with the expected uplift. If there is a significant unexplained discrepancy, the actual quantity inside the tanks has to be established by stick checking - using little sticks that drop from the underside of the wing to match up with magnetic floats inside the tank, thus indicating the level of fuel above the bottom of the tank. These readings have to be repeated at multiple locations on the wing, and then corrected if the surface on which the aircraft is parked is level. This whole procedure takes some time, but I am glad to see BA does not cut corners.