Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 September 2007 11:38:40
Today being Saturday we were looking forward to a lie-in. I'd woken up at 06:30 but then went back to sleep again shortly after. Suddenly I was awoken by the sound of the phone. I knew it shouldn't be family as I'd already had that news last night. It was, as I guessed, work.
As regular readers know I work in transport. I have 2 customers, one dealing it power station equipment and one with aircraft engines. The call was about the latter.
Yesterday we had an engine arrive with BA from Tokyo. We'd cleared customs and arranged for collection this morning. What could possibly go wrong. I mean its not an unusual occurence. However I'd forgotten about BA.
For those unaware BA are our national carrier and the dominant airline at Heathrow. They are reknowned for being, in their words, "The World's Favourite Airline". This has always made me laugh as, within our circles, they are commonly referred to as being a shower of ****.
This year they have managed to lose, or mislay, the baggage for 20,000 travellers. Things were so bad that they were trucking luggage from Heathrow to Italy to be sorted and then returned. Whereever possible I try to avoid using BA, either personally or professionally. However they give a generous refund to cargo customers, that is freight forwarders, every year if you meet your targets with them. This can be up to 20% of your spend.
So my driver arrives at 06:00hrs this morning to collect the engine.
First of all they send him away because they say that he needs a truck with a roller bed. He retuns with said trailer.
Then they ask him to reverse onto the loading bay. Why? asks the driver. So we can load it through the rear doors. But you can't said the driver because its on an aircraft pallet that is 6 inches to wide to fit through the doors. Plus you can't load the engine in this way, it needs to be loaded from the side.
So 2.45 hours later I get a call from the driver. I call BA and ask for the duty manager. The guy on the desk gives me the number for their IT manager. He then gives me the number for the correct manager.
His opening words were: "I thought you'd call me." So I explain what he is doing wrong and why. We agree that his guys are a bunch of prats and he goes off to do the right thing. Everything sorted.
Ah, but this is BA. 10 minutes later I get another call. The driver has had to pull out. BA don't have their 10 m/t forklift, they can't load it. So we now have to go back Monday morning.
In the midst of this I'm drawing my bath - no, not literally; how did I guess you'd think that? FW had made me my morning cuppa. I was on the phone and turned my back. The cuppa falls into the bath, leaving me with a bath now full of tea invested water.
At this point I went to bed and decided to start the day again.