[MartynSinclair]

Listening to Sky News today and reading various newspaper and internet reports, I realise exactly how lucky I was in having my bag arrive the following day.

For the record, I will not be making any claim to BA – I simply could not be bothered to go shopping – made do with the sports wear lent to me by the hotel.

The biggest gripe I have with this situation is that British Airways knew when I checked in there were problems and there was a strong likelihood bags would not travel.

I should be have been advised of this at check in and given the option of :

1. not travelling or changing the trip date
2. being advised to take my cabin sized baggage through as hand luggage

It is nothing short of disgraceful that the airline accepts bags in the FULL knowledge that there were severe IT problems with the baggage system…

[BigDog.]

All companies have serious hiccups from time to time. Some are self induced, some are down to external factors eg Weather.

When these occur, well run companies with motivated staff can tap into the reservoir of goodwill from loyal employees and everyone mucks in to help the company out. Quid pro quo.

However if there is bullying untrustworthy selfish leadership there will be no goodwill and problems take far longer to resolve, communication and service which should be ramped up will be left floundering. Over time the brand will be damaged.

No doubt Walsh and Williams will blame HAL however the management of the fall-out has been abysmal and is down to their clueless bullying luddite leadership culture they have instilled. Bonuses will remain intact regardless I reckon.

[JohnHarper]

How much good will do you think there is among BA frontline staff? If cabin crew are on a basic of £12K I wonder how much less check-in staff get. Probably only minimum wage.

Stack that up against the bullying culture, disempowerment of front line staff and Wee Willie on £13K+ a day and you would have to be pretty dedicated to be motivated.

[AnthonyDunn]

It was interesting listening to the BBC Radio 4 “Today” programme on Tuesday morning which featured an interview with the new CEO of Heathrow Airport Ltd. who conceded that there had been a massive T5 baggage system failure. This was 100% the fault of his company, as the operator of the baggage system. Amidst the general banter, the BBC radio presenter failed to pin him down for an explanation of what had caused this extended failure to an established system.

Typically, it is the airlines (mainly BA in this instance) who will take the flak and have to take responsibility for sorting it all out. If they had any integrity or concern about their customers, it should have been HAL senior management who should have been at the check-in desks in T5 giving out pre-emptive apologies and issuing all passengers with claim forms lest their bags not arrive at the same point and and at the same time as the departing passenger.

[canucklad]

Morning AD,

Alas I’m going to disagree with your point above. And although I agree with you that HAL has failed to deliver an essential service to BA, that’s a failure of delivery between BA & HAL.

Is it possible the Bean Counters actually made the decision and over ruled the customer service team to allow people to fly without letting them know?

When I purchase my ticket, I enter into a contract with BA,, and my expectations , although low are with BA not with a faceless corporation that manage an airport. After all if you’re food on board a BA flight is c**p you don’t ping an e-mail to Gate Gourmet do you?

And although the problem was with HAL, the ability to manage the problem landed squarely, broadly and fairly on the shoulders of BA management…….and predictably they buckled.

This was a known fault and there was no plan B, never mind, having a credible recovery plan.

As I said, a week to reunite my mate with his possessions, just doesn’t cut it. Having said that I’m sure BA will pass on the compensation costs to HAL, and rightly so.

EDITED TO ADD….. Reading BigDogs comment below, the little cynical man in my brain got to wondering what is actually covered in the contract ( ref: compensation) between HAL & BA, and more importantly what’s not covered.

Is it possible the Bean Counters actually made the decision and over ruled the customer service team to allow people to fly without letting them know?

[BigDog.]

There are some companies which go that extra mile to recover a service issue and receive plaudits when the service excellence stories are retold, earning the loyalty of those impacted and respect (with future custom) of others.

Most companies do the honourable minimum.

Then there are a few of BA’s ilk who even try to wriggle out of their minimum moral obligations – eg the Oslo flight cowl loss, fires and emergency due to employee negligence but still necessitated a drawn out court case to get BA to do the decent thing.

The leadership of these companies have lost the basic understanding that their primary role is to their customer instead primacy is given to minimise costs, losses, expenses. With the exception of those at the top, pay the bare minimum you can get away with.

BA could have been honest and told passengers there would have been a fair chance luggage would not have been loaded – so those getting married with suits and dresses packed could have chosen not to take the risk, or those having packed their bikes for an Andes cycling trek could have chosen to stay home etc but instead passengers were kept in the dark. I have heard whole flights arrived without any luggage loaded – outrageous if true.

It appears decisions have been made which minimise limited compensation costs rather than doing the right thing and keeping customers informed thus allowing them to make choices. The mushroom management culture is pervasive.

Time and time again one hears of amoral leadership regaining the right to manage. What is the point of regaining the right to manage when time and time again they have shown they are devoid of a moral compass, are inept and incapable of managing anything but cost/expense reduction.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2677236/Bosses-really-narcissists-Research-finds-managers-recruited-jobs-suffer-personality-disorder.html

[JohnHarper]

The more that comes to light about the baggage handling fiasco the more it is obvious that BA failed to even remotely consider their passengers and give them a choice of whether to take a risk on having bags or not at their destination. Talk about management passing the buck. Any company that treats its customers in this manner, allowing them to walk into this situation in ignorance does not deserve to be trading.

An external enquiry is needed into the rotten culture at the top of BA and heads need to roll as a consequence of this gross mis-management.

[Alkaseltzer]

It could happen with any airline? Not always true.

As mentioned elsewhere,LH & Swiss allow 2 cabin size bags in Business -always enough for me-while Club Euro allows 1 bag & 1 briefcase.

The overall gains from not having to check & retrieve a bag are significant.

Are more conveniently timed direct flights with BA worth the baggage problems,does anyone think?

[AnthonyDunn]

I’ve no doubt completely missed something here but can someone kindly offer an explanation of just went wrong? An established system that had been working… Canucklad made the comment above that it was problem everyone knew about… Err, what problem?

Beyond that, John Harper and Big Dog do have some distinctly valid points about the culture within an organisation that allows it to continue behaving as if there was no issue – and then leaving their fare-paying customers to live with the consequences.

[CXDiamond]

As ever it’s not that things can’t go wrong, it’s how they are dealt with and I agree with others that BA should have offered passengers arriving at T5 a choice of whether to check in bags or not. Allowing people to go knowing they would not get their bags and saying nothing is in my view corporate negligence and they seem to have perpetrated it for several days.

I do hope someone who was affected brings legal action against them for it, a lesson has to be learned.

[first_class_please]

I thought I would share with you all a gadget to help with lost luggage.

It’s called Trakdot.

I saw it on a CNN Business Traveller program a few months back with Richard Quest trailing one.

They were out of stock then I received it the day after departing on a trip, so just now able to let you know the details.

It’s a small device, about the size of a credit card with the depth of an AA battery. Basically because it uses two of them for power.

You buy the device and pay a yearly subscription fee. When you turn it on it connects with local GSM towers and when it connects to a GSM tower at an airport you can get an email and up to four sms messages to different devices.

Also as it connects to the towers you can view it’s route on an app or website, so I was able to see my wife travelling to the airport and then from destination airport to accommodation.

Handy peace of mind to know where your luggage is and also loved ones.

I just travelled via Heathrow and received messages about 20 minutes after arrival.

When I landed at Manchester airport and turned phone on as taxing to the terminal I received messages that both my suitcases were also there.

Handy gadget, especially if you have made a tight connection, or arrive without your luggage, it will tell you which airport it was in.

It does not have full GPS so you cannot track it to the right corner of the airport, but for the money I thought very useful.

http://www.trakdot.com

I also then found this link on BT

http://www.businesstravelerusa.com/news/tiny-device-takes-the-mystery-out-of-wandering-

[DerekVH]

Following this article I have received my trakdot unit; the instructions state there is a unique serial number inside the device which you need to use to register – there is no such number in my device but there is a number on the cover of the box it arrived it – I have emailed their technical support to verify this is indeed the number I need but 4 days later and no response – not impressed!

[first_class_please]

Derek, mine was a small sticker inside, same details as the barcode on the box.

I had letter E and then 6 numbers.

Hope that helps you.

[DerekVH]

FCP many thanks, that is the number on the barcode on the box is E and 6 numbers so that gives me more confidence it is correct.

[IanFromHKG]

Well, I thought I would give you all an update on BA’s baggage handling. On our recent trip to PMI, BA didn’t lose a single bag! They just destroyed one instead…. The luggage agent at PMI described it on the form as “frame completely broken”, which was something of an understatement…

However, the good news is that this time around BA were very efficient in handling our claim for the cost of a new suitcase. I lobbed in the claim about three days later, and got a reply promising payment in full within two days of submission. So for that, well done BA!

Now let’s hope that means my run of bad luck is over – I am flying BA from LHR to HKG tomorrow with four check-in bags. Fingers crossed!!

[Author]

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