[Hermes1964]

Not wishing to disagree with what posters have experienced, but do we really need this thread? It’s just the same as every other and making the forum rather dull. 🙁

[bacrew1]

Absolutely Hermes1964…. (+1)
Undoubtedly more BA bashing on this once interesting forum…
9 out 10 threads about BA currently at 23:46
Why is there so much negative fascination on BT Forum with BA??

[TominScotland]

Hermes1964 and bacrew1 +1

Anyone would think that flying BA and using their lounges was forced on folk against their will – there is always a choice…….

[KeaneJohn]

At the end of the day this is a Business Travel Forum and people here will voice their opinions. Since my original post in October last year I have flown another 20 sectors with BA, all Premium Cabins apart from UK domestic sectors.

Again all flights and in flight service has been spot on. The odd crew with no energy but that is sometimes to be expected. One flight spent 40% of the in the air time waiting to be attatched to the jetway at T5 as there was nobody to meet the flight. that was a bit frustrating but what can you do.?

I have had 2 or 3 more battles with the atrocious call centre trying to redeem some of the tens of thousands of Avios that I have accrued
because I cant do what I want to do online.

Ground crew again consistent apart from 2 people that didn;t give a damn and wouldn’t help when it was needed. Lounge staff ok and fortunately I have used the lounges when hot meals are provided so quite happy with the changes but can understand why there are unhappy people.

Despite flying in a Premium Cabin and one of the first off the aircraft and through immigration one of the last to leave the baggage carousel 45 minutes after doors open as “priority” baggage wasn’t. This is at a location where there is a constant problem and BA’s cut and paste answer to my concerns at this location have not been actioned.

I do indeed have a choice but I have chosen to fly BA for the time being and have many other bookings already confirmed. When people fly regularly, they are more likely for something to go wrong or to have a bad experience.

If I have received exceptional service I write or email to BA to make sure my feedback is given to the staff involved. If the service has fallen short of what I expect I have contacted BA customer relations,

BA are letting standards slip and therefore sometimes they will disappoint and people should be able to post those experiences on a forum for business travel.

Interestingly, when I do a journey review which are usually pretty positive hardly anybody comments on them so must mean people are more akin to negative feedback.

[KeaneJohn]

At the end of the day this is a Business Travel Forum and people here will voice their opinions. Since my original post in October last year I have flown another 20 sectors with BA, all Premium Cabins apart from UK domestic sectors.

Again all flights and in flight service has been spot on. The odd crew with no energy but that is sometimes to be expected. One flight spent 40% of the in the air time waiting to be attatched to the jetway at T5 as there was nobody to meet the flight. that was a bit frustrating but what can you do.?

I have had 2 or 3 more battles with the atrocious call centre trying to redeem some of the tens of thousands of Avios that I have accrued
because I cant do what I want to do online.

Ground crew again consistent apart from 2 people that didn;t give a damn and wouldn’t help when it was needed. Lounge staff ok and fortunately I have used the lounges when hot meals are provided so quite happy with the changes but can understand why there are unhappy people.

Despite flying in a Premium Cabin and one of the first off the aircraft and through immigration one of the last to leave the baggage carousel 45 minutes after doors open as “priority” baggage wasn’t. This is at a location where there is a constant problem and BA’s cut and paste answer to my concerns at this location have not been actioned.

I do indeed have a choice but I have chosen to fly BA for the time being and have many other bookings already confirmed. When people fly regularly, they are more likely for something to go wrong or to have a bad experience.

If I have received exceptional service I write or email to BA to make sure my feedback is given to the staff involved. If the service has fallen short of what I expect I have contacted BA customer relations,

BA are letting standards slip and therefore sometimes they will disappoint and people should be able to post those experiences on a forum for business travel.

Interestingly, when I do a journey review which are usually pretty positive hardly anybody comments on them so must mean people are more akin to negative feedback.

[esselle]

KeaneJohn

Interesting post, thanks.

Is it not the case that, with seemingly little, if any experience of other carriers, your perspective of BA could be a little one-dimensional?

My comments on BA in the past have always been made in a context of comparison, and it is this which has driven me to only fly BA if there is little alternative.

[StandingThemUp]

KeaneJohn – 12/07/2013 06:13 GMT

It’s human nature to spread word of a bad experience more than a good one, there is a lot of data to show this.

But please keep your reviews coming, I certainly appreciate the detail that you provide and it is helpful.

BA standards are slipping, but I find the short haul flights tend to be better than the long haul, I might not particularly rate the CE product, but the crew are normally okay.

Where I see the standards slipping more visibly are on the long haul flights, to give an example, outbound to Narita from London, my seat in CW was literally covered in bread crumbs and the arms in dust and the floor area had multiple (as in 20 plus) tiny pieces of shredded paper over it.

I reported it and the purser was appalled, as the aircraft had been ‘cleaned’. The crew ended up having to clean the seat area, including using a damp cloth on the arms of the seat, to remove the dust.

This is by no means the first time I’ve encountered a dirty seat at LHR, the crew even had to change a seat cover (in CW) a couple of years ago, as it was badly stained and the cleaners had not dealt with it. This is clear evidence of slipping standards and I don’t think the BA crew on here would contest the cleaning issues at homebase – but why isn’t management on top of it? Crew should not be having to clean seats pre-flight, a point I made to the CSD on the flight, after thanking him for his people’s efforts.

Coming back from Narita, in F, the call bell was ignored on three separate occasions, when I was trying to get a glass of water. As the belt sign was on, I could not get up and go to the galley, either.

In F, one expects the crew to be proactively looking for pax needs, but if they are not, then the call bell should be answered very quickly. Another sign of falling standards.

[AllOverTheGaff]

KeaneJohn – 12/07/2013 06:13 GMT
At the end of the day this is a Business Travel Forum and people here will voice their opinions.

It has confused me since day 1 of finding this forum why people get so touchy and unreasonable whenever there is negative comment about British Airways – it is as if you are insulting them personally when you are critical of their flights.

This is a travel forum with a large percentage of UK contributors – BA are one of the biggest providers of premium class travel from the UK – it is therefore logical that BA will feature more prominently than other airlines.

[MartynSinclair]

** dated, shabby and poor quality products

[canucklad]

Gsantchurn’s post does have some very valid points … and I don’t think it is BA bashing, in fact one of the points made is incredibly relevant…… Plus I didn’t detect any criticism of BA’s service…

If BA decide to move a flight from LHR to LGW then there is going to be a negative reaction, especially from loyal transfer customers…. Who will now probably jump to EK / AF/KL /LH or Turkish?

And for those of us who don’t live in the SE, and have tried to book Avios flights we should have a bit of sympathy with the post….

A few months ago Becky had a wee pop at me for departing EDI at 10.00 for my 17.00 flight to YVR…Why would I pay an over inflated coach ticket to scoot around the M25 ……

So, a suggestion to BA,,,,make it easier to transit between LHR & LGW , maybe have your own BA coaches, after all at LHR I see loads of BA crew coaches ….

[BigDog.]

It is disappointing that BA has such an idiot managing 1500 cabin crew. Apparently this BA manager had previously disciplined CC for their comments on facebook then posts far worse himself. Aspirational as ever…

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2361625/BA-managers-Facebook-rant-Judy-Murray-watched-Andy-win-Wimbledon.html

[bacrew1]

I think you’ll find the figure is alot more than 1500 crew! he manages worldwide fleet

[KeaneJohn]

Thanks everybody for your comments. It is indeed true that bad experiences spread quicker than good but I am keen to ensure that positive feedback is also fed back. If is something small like a clean train I will tweet this to the TOC. As I would probably for excellent service on East Coast trains. This both gets a tiny bit of good publicity for the organisation and hopefully the social media team can feed back to the relevant areas.

After a bad experience with BA I boycotted them for many years switching my loyalty to BD/*A. . Lounge dragons were welcoming and often remembered you by name and asked how things were going. Priority baggage was exactly that, priority even on an EDI-LHR flight. With regards to intra Europe travel, LX had some great C class fares about 30-40% cheaper than BA discounted CE tickets and they could be changed for a £50 fee. Living 10 mins to LCY. door to door journey times much of a muchness even with the change of aircraft. Longhaul travel originating in LCY a dream with 20-30 min check in, baggage transferred, ZRH better than FRA. Great products on LX and LH in my opinion in J class. Redemptions were easier to come by as you had loads of choice. Travelling London to say Muscat you could go via Cairo, Dubai with Swiss, or AUH with Lufthansa or even via Istanbul. Indeed *A gave for some great routing and stopover opportunities with the North Atlantic and Middle East in J class for
30000 miles and £500 cash under a part cash part miles booking.

When flying across the pond I used to go Virgin. Some truly great experiences and some truly awful ones too. One of the best was booking reward flights for the the Y2K celebrations. Was delighted to get a PE award seat but then the agent said well I can see you have 3 other journeys booked with us between now and the end of the year so would you like me to put your account overdrawn so you can fly Upper Class for such a special occasion. Naturally I jumped at the chance and I don’t think it would happen again but it was those tiny things.

Since BA acquired BD last year and transferred my miles and status matched me I have only flown BA. Reluctant to jump ship as its not THAT bad yet but the tiny things like when you press the call bell for another drink and after 10 minutes nobody comes so you go and ask for it and feel that you are an inconvenience for interrupting a conversation that you remember.

That said one of the wow moments was on a severely delayed flight from LGW to MAN the lounge dragon brought the First Officer over to me as he wanted to explain the delay. He said he would get the gate to call the lounge when the flight was ready so ignore the monitors and shortly after he walked away one of the lounge staff said that she overheard the conversation and thought I might like another glass of champagne as my flight was delayed. Truly joined up service.

[StandingThemUp]

Canucklad

“So, a suggestion to BA,,,,make it easier to transit between LHR & LGW , maybe have your own BA coaches, after all at LHR I see loads of BA crew coaches ….”

The dreaded Ryanair provides a good offer to people buying transfer tickets, they get a voucher valid for any coach in the 24 hours after the scheduled arrival time of their flight.

This avoids having to pay National Express any change fees.

Maybe BA could do the same? I am sure that FR are not doing this out of charity, so there is probably a margin to make.

[1nfrequent]

“the tiny things like when you press the call bell for another drink and after 10 minutes nobody comes so you go and ask for it and feel that you are an inconvenience for interrupting a conversation that you remember.”

I know a couple of people have said this as well as KeaneJohn, but I also wanted to throw my agreement in with this. I know that cabin crew can be very busy getting things ready for service or doing other checks, but it is very frustrating when you press the call button because you have to (e.g. because the seatbelt sign is on) and no one comes.

On a flight back from JFK early in the year, I was sitting right next to the cabin and needed assistance with a cabin light that wasn’t working. The crew were more interested in chatting than in answering the call, even though I was right there next to them. When I ended up asking them with a simple “Excuse me” I got a curt “wait” in response and waited for them to finish their conversation (which was definitely not work related) until one of them came to fix it. It’s not what I’m paying upwards of 2 grand for a ticket.

1F

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