The Great Escape

They're being standard, tbh. This is ATC practice. The problem is that LHR
is at capacity. Heathrow is the busiest international airport in the world.
Probably the busiest once T5 goes live.

But, there is a UK one that becomes the busiest in the world overall for a
very short time each year. O'Hare, as I am sure we all know, is the busiest
in terms of pax. Atlanta Peachtree (hellhole) has the most movements, iirc.

Ali

 

Oi. What about us gurls and gays?

Ali

 

Thus making it a shithole?

 

Why does that look so much like a scottish football result?

 

No argument from me on that. Bad Man.

Ali

 

"The batsman's Holding, the bowler's Willey."
(Brian Johnston)

 

Ohhh, you mean you fall under "pre sales technical" catchall given to
techies turned sales people but can't admit it?

I'm intrigued as to who else from my lot you know and whether I should
start posting less ;o)


--
Dnc

B12, ZZR11
A6 2.5TDi V6 Quattro Sport
MIB#26 two#54(soiled) UKRMMA#26 BOTAFOT#153 X-FOT#003

 

Heh, close enough.

<G> I could say the same for you. I only know a small handful of folks
and even then, not too well. Ralf, Deyra, a small French stripey guy
with glasses and a Dutch guy who does presentations in France with a
green laser pointer (I can't remember their names).

 

There are many top notch European trains including excellent sleeper
services. Some are premium fares but they includes showers and decent
washing facilities in the berths.

When inter-railing I have had the experience you cite (and worse) but it
doesn't have to be that way.

 

Well, as I pleaded before, details???

 

http://www.raileurope.co.uk/

This is owned by French Railways [1] - the office is on Piccadilly not
far from the Ritz if you wish to have a human being to deal with.

or else either of these people have good reputations in sorting all the
hassle out of European train journeys.

http://www.festtravel.co.uk/index.php?ffestiniog=tickets

http://www.trainseurope.co.uk/

HTH

[1] used to be British Rail International. The frogs bought it when we
decided to privatise our railways. Fucking stupid of us to sell it IYAM.

 

Which is my point. Apart from it being freezing cold and foggy rather
than sweltering hot there is little difference in the pictures and
reporting between now and last July / August. The ordinary punter
won't necessarily apply much logic or thought - they'll just think the
place is shit again. With the growth in competition with CDG, Schiphol
and Frankfurt you might imagine BAA and BA would wish to display more
competence in the face of adverse circumstances.

Given there are procedures in place and to some extent the impact is
predictable you would imagine that more effective communication would be
possible. Learning the mistakes from past episodes should have been done
by now by both BA and BAA - companies that claim to be world leaders in
their particular fields of operation.

Still the flight I catch tomorrow is already showing as 1 hour delayed,
tonight's equivalent is about 30 mins delayed and last night's left 2
hours and 53 minutes late (ugh!). Not that I have checking at all.

 

Impatient bugger - see earlier in the thread. You'd think you couldn't
work Google or something.

 

Tried the raileurope link, for a return trip, Ashford ---> Lourdes.
Picked a hypothetical week in April.

"Your journey cannot be sold as one ticket on the site because it
requires more than 3 changes. Please contact our Call Centre on 08705
848 848."

Tried clicking on the "Price Search" button. Got an unspecified price of
£109 return for standard and £189 for first. That's better. But then:
"Click here for bookings and to check availability for your route and
travel dates." And no clickable link. This may be a Mac issue, but
there's still no excuse for it.

Saw the Special Offers button, Clicked on that. Woh! First class form
£37. Clicked again, to the booking form. Got the same page as before,
and guess what?

"Your journey cannot be sold as one ticket on the site because it
requires more than 3 changes. Please contact our Call Centre on 08705
848 848."

Went back to look for sleeper trains. No mention.

This is what I mean - it's ludicrous. Why is international rail travel
so damn difficult to organise? It'a shite webpage for a service that may
be good, but I challenge anyone here on ukrm to use it and give me a
decent service and price for Ashford--->Lourdes and back.

Away you go.

Then tried the trainseurope link.

On the opening page:

"due to a technical error, we are unable to connect you to Eurostar's
timetable page at present. We will endeavour to rectify this as soon as
possible"

Went to the "book here" link, and got this:

"Tickets can only be booked online at least seven working days in
advance of departure to allow for us to post your tickets to you.

All bookings are subject to a £20.00 booking cover charge."

Paul, sorry and all that, as I know this is your life and your work, but
this is fucking ludicrous.

 

See other posting. Sorry, but it's a shambles.

 

[snip rant]

I agree it should be an awful lot better. I think the failure to link
through to Eurostar will simply be down to Eurostar being under
tremendous pressure given the weather conditions and people wanting to
use their services as there are no planes. As you were pleading the case
for Heathrow Airport I feel I should do the same for Eurostar - normally
their site is fine.

I forgot this one

http://www.deutsche-bahn.co.uk/-S:PtVORN:el9B4dNNWKJp39NNNWNM/db_uk/view/index.shtml

It may be better or it may not - the site has a good reputation.

If I was wanting to make even moderate use of a country's rail network I
would opt for a form of rover ticket as it removes the transaction
hassle. I suspect you would not wish to do this as it would mean
extracting more pound notes from your wallet than you might like.

It isn't my life and work really - I only do diddy trains that scuttle
through tunnels. Not proper ones like in swelller land.

 

Silverstone?

 

Heh. No, I was merely trying to find a price/timetable for a basic
return ticket for four, since that is what I'd be in the market for.

Heh again. Fair comment, and have good Christmas.

 

Well done that chap.

Ali

 

"Fee fie fo fum, fee fie fo, fee fie fee."





































....Chris Ewbanks' phone number.