Sleeping British Airways crew delays flight to Barcelona, Spain
Aberdeen - Early bird passengers, who had already checked in for a British Airways (BA) flight from Aberdeen to Barcelona, were kept waiting for over three hours on Sunday morning, while their cabin crew snoozed on.
Holidaymakers were understandably rather upset, as they were booked on an early bird flight, which meant traveling to the airport in the middle of the night. However, once checked in, they had to wait over three hours early on Sunday morning, because the BA crew had reportedly had a bad night.
Apparently British Airways told the passengers that they had ordered the flight crew to sleep on for a while, because they had been kept awake at their hotel by a noisy wedding party.
However, the angry passengers did not accept this excuse and headed to Facebook and Twitter to voice their indignation.
Passenger Andrew Wyness tweeted: "Sitting in Aberdeen when I should be flying to Barcelona due to a resting crew. #sloppylogistics #couldbeavoided."
Another person updated their status on Facebook as follows:
"We were told by a member of British Airways staff that the crew had been disturbed by a noisy wedding party below the accommodation at their hotel. BA haven’t offered us any compensation, but I’ll certainly be looking into it."
According to BA, the British airline which merged with Spain's Iberia airline in 2011 to form AIG, they didn't have a replacement crew available to stand in for the exhausted crew.
A spokesperson for BA told the media:
"Our crew and cabin crew are required by law to have certain rest periods between operating flights and if that is disrupted then we have to make appropriate measures."
"Regardless of this particular issue, the alternative measures in certain circumstances might mean a replacement crew being brought in if requirements haven't been met."
"But obviously if you don't have a replacement crew then you gave to take other relevant measures to deal with that situation."
"This particular incident is still something that we are still looking into."
"We apologize to our customers for the delay, but the flight had to be delayed for operational reasons."
"These decisions are based on safety and security which are two principles we will never compromise."
According to a spokesperson for Aberdeen International Airport it looks like the delay was a one-off and that their operations ran as normal the rest of the day.
"We can't comment on it as it is related to the BA crew members," the spokesperson added.
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