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[MSE Lawrence]

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's 'Teaching BA an expensive lesson! Consumers shouldn't be treated this way.' blog. Please read the blog first, as the discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Teaching BA an expensive lesson! Consumers shouldn't be treated this way.
" Blog

[Heinz]

So, BA has a 'reimburse' policy does it?

Reimburse what though? Actual costs (£60 taxi fare plus postage)?

Or the real cost - £60 taxi fare plus postage, plus 'sorry for the inconvenience goodwill payment, plus recompense for the time filling in their complaint form?

I think I can guess.

[hollydays]

Found myself in a situation with BMI once.At a UK hotel we had been placed in and the Police had to be called because the crowd were deemed to be getting angry,(by the plain clothes BMI person in the crowd not there to help just to protect its snooty staff should we revolt) they WERE angry ,simply because no one was informing us what was HAPPENING- a 24 hour long haul cancellation due to a technical fault.SO right what you say about Customer Service.I tried to get this compensation-its easier said that done,trust me,as many others have found.

Would be really nice if the item by Martin on getting compo back from airlines was updated ie that its virtually impossible to get airlines to abide by it,last question i posted in March asking if anyone had actually got compensation-no replies as yet-what does that tell you.Eu laws are not working. I contacted BMI who told me they had never heard of the Eu regulation-unlikely wouldnt you think?Airline rage rant over.

[churchmouse]

Tip; Keep your video camera in your hand luggage, then when you have problems along the way ,film it and inform the unhelpful numpty behind whatever desk that you are sending this to BBC s Watchdog programme... No-one likes bad publicity. Its a shame that your crews camera gear was in the delay you could have a whole new programme on airport aggrevations.
Mind you when a pal of mine was in the queue for lost or delayed baggage he did the same as you and informed others behind him that was little hope of getting it back that evening and was promptly arrested , as the police took him away he asked what the charges were and as they could not answer he calmly walked away !! ok he also told them where to go ** }
Maybe BA actually stands for Baggage Auctioneers..

[cashflow]

Originally Posted by churchmouse

Tip; Keep your video camera in your hand luggage, then when you have problems along the way ,film it and inform the unhelpful numpty behind whatever desk that you are sending this to BBC s Watchdog programme... No-one likes bad publicity. Its a shame that your crews camera gear was in the delay you could have a whole new programme on airport aggrevations.
Mind you when a pal of mine was in the queue for lost or delayed baggage he did the same as you and informed others behind him that was little hope of getting it back that evening and was promptly arrested , as the police took him away he asked what the charges were and as they could not answer he calmly walked away !! ok he also told them where to go ** }
Maybe BA actually stands for Baggage Auctioneers..

================================================== ======
BA is known amongst some of the aviation fraternity as 'Big Airways'!

Well done, Martin.

[diamonds]

im frequently the announcer like Martin when im on a companies recieving end, good on him !

[Js_Other_Half]

I actually once had BA arrange for a taxi home as they'd cancelled the earlier flight I was meant to be on, and it would have been difficult for me to get home. The taxi was waiting for me when I arrived at the airport, and drove me 60 miles home. The only reason I got it was because I insisted they do something (!) at the airport I was flying from. I wasn't the only person who was booked on the cancelled flight, but I was the only one with a taxi home.

[diesel77]

Hi martin,
Thanks for all your fabulous advice! I am a member of BA crew, can I just say that your blog doesn't surprise me in the least, every time I go to work there is just problem after problem, !!!! up after !!!! up and nothing EVER changes. They treat employees and customers alike with utter contempt.My advice is never fly BA, I NEVER do and I work for them, your journey will never be seamless. Try easyjet when you can, nine times out of ten they leave and land on time and your baggage miraculously APPEARS after a flight!!
bes regards to you and good luck with your travels in the future!

[bylromarha]

Working at 11.45pm Martin?! Tsk Tsk!!!

Did you get any questions about bank charging or credit cards after people sussed you? No forum members coming over to say hi?

[m_i]

I flew to Dubai on Thursday - i checked in the night before and got the emergency exit seat.

Once all the passengers had boarded the 9.40pm flight - an announcement is made on the tannoy that the plane cannot fly because it did not pass all its checks - the reason was that the plane was struck by lightning twice on its way from Bombay to London.

We were asked to disembark while BA proceeded to bring another plane for us to use.

No apology was given.

We were then sent to another gate. We waited 3 hours to board the new plane - an apology was forthcoming because several people complained.

The new plane was a different type of plane so i did not get the extra legroom of an emergency exit seat - again no apology.

We were then told that we might not be able to fly because of the late hour because the last flight had already gone and there are noise pollution rules that BA need to follow.

Five minutes later we took off - i guess it was cheaper for BA to pay a fine then pay for taxis home.

I don't think i will be flying BA again - except for the free flight i have already booked on Airmiles.

I must admit though that flying Virgin is not much better.

m_i

[jmfwilts]

The last three times I have flown with BA and landed at T1 Heathrow, I had to wait over an hour from the time my plane has touched down to getting my bags. I hope that when T5 opens they can sort this mess out. Where possible I try and fly from Bristol or Southampton as the wait for baggage is not normally that long.
On a slightly different subject I have noticed at Heathrow Passport control the queue for non EU passport holders is often much less than for EU holders, and therefore e.g a US citizen could proceed through immigration quicker than a UK citizen! I've often wondered what would happen if I joined the non EU queue with a UK passport!

[smala01]

BA may not be the best airline but at least they dont leave their passengers out of pocket.

Take Easyjet or Ryanair for example - they would certainly not pay for your Cab home, nor would they compensate you for a cancelled flight.

[purplepatch]

Bloody BA lost my baby's car seat. I deliberately don't book infant carseats through the car hire people as they are usually ancient death-traps, twisted straps, don't fit the car properly etc. So we lugged a carseat and a booster from the uk which was no mean feat along with all the usual baby paraphernalia - they wouldn't let us check the booster seat so had to take as hand luggage! Which was probably fortunate as hey presto, upon arrival in Marseille, no infant carseat had arrived. Had to join the 12 strong queue of irate passengers from our flight who also had delayed baggage, to be dealt with by the most miserable looking french woman you've ever come across having had to wait the best part of an hour with two little ones.

Carseat was delivered to us free of charge a couple of days later but I had to rent one from Europcar in the meantime at a cost of twenty quid. Fortunately it was a lovely brand new one, so my baby was safe at least during our onward journey from Marseille airport.

I've put in a claim for the £20 and they are already making noises about it may be better for us to claim on our insurance. I'd also like to claim compensation for the inconvenience and delay to our journey, transporting 2 young children with a delay of over an hour (it was already a very long day for them) was not much fun. Don't suppose I'll get anywhere with that, but I will be very annoyed if at the very least, they don't reimburse the cost of having to rent the item that they lost...

BA...stards... Good on you Martin. Make them pay.

[Lindsay-Lou]

We booked a round the world ticket with BA a couple of years back and they managed to book us on a connecting flight in LAX which we couldn't possibly make - when we were in Sydney the Quantas people told us its in a rule book somewhere that you CANNOT book an onward flight in LA airport where there is less than 2 hours between arrival of the first and departure of the second and BA had booked us on one 1hr 55mins difference - not much you'd say, but the Quantas girly insisted on changing our flights. And yes, you guessed it, there's only one flight a day to where we were going. (as it turned out it took us 3 hours to get through security )

I saved my irritation for the BA desk in LAX (we waited 2 hours for it too open in the first place). Now I'm not normally a pushy or forward person, I'll always let my OH do any bargaining/complaining/general chancing his arm but i had a bee in my bonnet that day and took great pleasure in bending the ear of firstly both the BA rep and his boss. They both suggested we should write to their offices in London or New York to complain. I eventually convinced them that we needed compensation now and got vouchers for room and board in an airport hotel for the night!

Oh boy we ate ourselves silly just for the sake of spending as much of their money as possible

always complain and always complain loudly

[golddustmedia]

Well done, but I hope it actually DOES work out.

I had similar on a flight into Exeter from Glasgow on a Sunday. 1 hour flight arrived 2 hours late!

However this meant there were no more public transport connections for the day. I went to the desk and complained and was told where to write to and advised to get a cab home and claim it's cost.

I did so and recieved a letter back stating it was not policy to pay customer taxi fares and I had been missinformed. SO I replied and was rather insistent, taking the opportunity to note the other problems on the journey (my wife was pregnant and the only inflight sandwiches were prawn, as you may know you shouldn't eat shellfish when pregnant), I noted that had it been the case I was Jewish and it was Ham sandwich it would be a case of not catering for a mainstream religion so surely a widely applicable medical case was just as valid etc etc.

Eventually they caved in and paid for the taxi fare but were not happy about it.

Good luck with BA, I hope they cough up!

[Voyager2002]

Originally Posted by m_i

I flew to Dubai on Thursday - i checked in the night before and got the emergency exit seat.

Once all the passengers had boarded the 9.40pm flight - an announcement is made on the tannoy that the plane cannot fly because it did not pass all its checks - the reason was that the plane was struck by lightning twice on its way from Bombay to London.

We were asked to disembark while BA proceeded to bring another plane for us to use.

No apology was given.

We were then sent to another gate. We waited 3 hours to board the new plane - an apology was forthcoming because several people complained.

The new plane was a different type of plane so i did not get the extra legroom of an emergency exit seat - again no apology.

We were then told that we might not be able to fly because of the late hour because the last flight had already gone and there are noise pollution rules that BA need to follow.

Five minutes later we took off - i guess it was cheaper for BA to pay a fine then pay for taxis home.

I don't think i will be flying BA again - except for the free flight i have already booked on Airmiles.

I must admit though that flying Virgin is not much better.

m_i

In this case, I have some sympathy with the airline.

Presumably you did not expect them to take off in a 'plane that was unsafe. OK, they would have known before then about the lightning strike, but probably only had a limited amount of time in which to get passengers on board, and carried out safety tests and damage assessment while you were boarding. Once they decided that it would not be safe to continue the journey, they were obviously in a crisis situation. Yes, it would have been nice if the person telling you to disembark had apologised, but presumably s/he was focused on letting you know what was going on and finding a solution.

They really should have served refreshments during the three hour wait. I do not, however, think you can blame them for not having an aeroplane sitting there on stand-by, and it does not surprise me that it took them that long to organise another one. And pity that it was a different model than the one they had originally planned to use. In that situation it is not surprising that seat assignments go: they obviously had enough trouble getting people on to the 'plane before the cut-off time for departures.

I think they should have offered some free drinks to make up for a depressing experience, but at least they got you safely to where you were going. And given that kind of starting situation, I doubt whether any other airline could have done much better.

[jjstar]

I agree that Martin's original blog about waiting so long to get luggage is ridiculous and people should complain to try and improve this. However, Voyager2002 is completely correct about the flight to Dubai. You must remember that you are on an aircraft and surely safety is the most important thing. Have you ever been in a crash or an emergency? Safety's got to come first. And airlines don't have aircraft hanging around spare, it was great that they could put you on another aircraft so soon - I'm sure the delay was annoying, but look at the bigger picture, they must err on the side of caution and put you on a safe plane. Surely that was getting your money's worth!

[m_i]

Hello again

I thought i would update you on my BA flight back o London:
Flight delayed by 40 minutes - not told until we go through to the BA departure gate - not allowed to take in hot drinks. Then someone special comes through with a hot drink.

Hot food - 4 pieces of ravioli with a mystery filling covered in a tiny amount of sauce, a piece of courgette and two unidentifiable vegetables. On the way to Dubai i asked for Chicken - was given Chicken Tangine - tasted awful and filled with dry chicken and very large pieces of dried Apricot.

During a period of turbulance the passengers were shouted at for leaving their seats - this has not happenned before - usually we are left at our own dscretion if we need to use the loo while the fasten seatbelt sign is on during the middle of the flight and the turbulace was very minor in this case.

Once we landed late (as per uual with BA)my sisters phone rang - was our taxi driver. The steward named Simon on flight BA108 which landed this afternoon shouted at her for answering he phone. That was just rude.

Had to get a bus to the terminal - remember this is terminal 4 which is served by BA and we had to get a bus. I expect that in Africa but not London.

Got through customs by 2.30pm and waited until 4pm for our luggage because BA had a problem with the baggage handlers.

Finally got home at 5.30pm and had to pay the driver extra for the additional 2 hour wait.

Thanks for your comments Voyager but if a plane is hit by lightning i am sure that the pilot would notice. And getting hit twice is a bit hard to ignore and most people would assume that the plane was unsafe to fly without a thorough going over. What it proves is that BA are cheap. Yes another airline would not have done the same because they don't have spare planes hanging around in their own hanger at their own terminal.

Yes i am lucky that BA still serve hot food and i got my luggage and they bought me home but it was the manner in which they did it that i am not happy with. And no paying customer deserves to be shouted at for wanting to use the loo and especiallynot in public.

m_i

[Scarlett1]

Martin I flew into Heathrow on the 15th around 9 and if I would have known you were landing soon after I would have hanged around for you , my flight was delayed for an hour cause of the traffice over europe , fortunately wasnt long in the baggage lounge as 10 minutes after getting off the flight I collected the cases, flew with CSA

[perigee]

About 2 years ago, my luggage was delayed coming off the plane. I had a meeting to get to so the airline (sorry can't remember who it was) delivered it to me at home later that day. I was told that they had to do this if the delay was over a certain period. No idea whether this works/still applies