BA lost its way?

Back to Forum
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 29 total)

  • AM LIBRA
    Participant

    Flew BA176 JFK-LHR in Club World.

    Flight attendant (Name withheld) was discourteous and what came across as discriminating behavior. While serving food, she persistently was rude and would simply press the button to bring the screen down and hand over my meal rather than placing it on my tray. Mind you most of these are hot meals! Considering the configuration, my seat (15E) has at least a 2 foot walking space in front of it without any obstruction which would allow food to be served on my tray rather than passing me a hot plate from over the screen! She didn’t bother to serve me an beverage, and this even went noticed by another kind flight attendant who came and served me a glass of wine with my meal. I never asked for another thing during the entire journey, having felt completely let down by appalling service. Perhaps BA should invest in some unbiased training for their crew members as her behavior was particularly shameful.

    Then upon arrival at Heathrow, the luggage was severely delayed. First bags arrived more than an hour after the flight arrival.

    At this time I genuinely feel that BA seems to have lost its way!!


    capetonianm
    Participant

    At least you didn’t have to sit on a plastic bag to cover a urine-soaked seat.

    http://dailym.ai/2wcYqms


    seasonedtraveller
    Participant

    [quote quote=823533]Flew BA176 JFK-LHR in Club World.

    Flight attendant (Name withheld) was discourteous and what came across as discriminating behavior. While serving food, she persistently was rude and would simply press the button to bring the screen down and hand over my meal rather than placing it on my tray. Mind you most of these are hot meals! Considering the configuration, my seat (15E) has at least a 2 foot walking space in front of it without any obstruction which would allow food to be served on my tray rather than passing me a hot plate from over the screen! She didn’t bother to serve me an beverage, and this even went noticed by another kind flight attendant who came and served me a glass of wine with my meal. I never asked for another thing during the entire journey, having felt completely let down by appalling service. Perhaps BA should invest in some unbiased training for their crew members as her behavior was particularly shameful.

    Then upon arrival at Heathrow, the luggage was severely delayed. First bags arrived more than an hour after the flight arrival.

    At this time I genuinely feel that BA seems to have lost its way!!

    [/quote]

    Is your assessment of an entire airline based on this single flight?
    In what way was this lady rude and discriminating towards you?


    Swissdiver
    Participant

    I’ve seen many times crew handing dishes over when seating on the window’s seat. Not that I enjoy it. But it seems it is the way they go now… Bad? Yes. Discriminating: Probably no!


    capetonianm
    Participant

    Reading again the original posting, I do wonder if there’s a little bit of playing a race/discrimination card here :

    ……….. came across as discriminating behavior. She didn’t bother to serve me an beverage, Perhaps BA should invest in some unbiased training for their crew members as her behavior was particularly shameful.

    BA’s service is often very poor, but they do treat everyone equally badly, or well in rare cases.


    AM LIBRA
    Participant

    Wish that was true, as no one in this day and age should experience it. She was mostly okay with others. And went across the empty space to serve to others. It went noticed by others too. Hard to understand if not a first hand experience, which I wish upon no one.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    For the record, it is BA standard procedure to offer F&B through the divider, not around the end of the seat.

    It’s one of the reasons I really don’t like CW, the divider whizzing up and down during the service.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    Let me share my ‘premium’ experience on BA last week

    For the record, I have a BA gold card (not that it counts for much)

    – bumped out of the bulkhead aisle seat in WTP due to an aircraft change, ended up in the aisle of the last row
    – accused of misrepresenting facts (lying) at the lounge front desk
    – boarding was a shambles
    – no gold welcome onboard
    – no pre-departure fizz (not allowed in Dubai, they said – actually, they don’t have a way of chilling it on the return leg)
    – by the time the meal service reached my row, they only had a choice of 1 beef or pasta from WT (WTP was apparently under catered)
    – perfunctory and not particularly pleasant service
    – when I was sleeping, an FA woke me up by leaning across to close the window blind – anyone with an IQ over a pack of mince would be able to see that when you are 5’5″ (65″, about 1/2 of which is below the bending point) and you are trying to lean across 2 seats that are each about 20″ wide and then another 6-7″ beyond to the window, it isn’t going to work without making contact and that is going to wake the passenger with a bit of a start

    So, only travel BA if you want low fares and lower your expectations deeply.

    I suspect the OP doesn’t fly very often and mistook the highly variable BA norm as discriminatory (which I get).


    openfly
    Participant

    FDOS….no, wrong! It always whizzes down, but they frequently forget to raise the divider! Maybe too technical for them?!

    Why do the Mixed fleet crews insist on handing you a bottle of water, or a glass of champagne, when you have just arrived at your seat and are still attempting to put your hand baggage into the locker??! Why do they put the lights on in the morning and immediately confront you with the breakfast trolley? Please give me a couple of minutes to wake up so that I am in a position to make decisions!
    Is it time to join experienced Legacy crew with inexperienced Mixed fleet crew? It can only improve things. Maybe it will cost Sr Cruz a little money, but hey it’s worth a try. Anything to get to grips with the falling standards!

    LHR short haul “afternoon tea” now comprises three tiny sandwiches with dubious (cheap) fillngs and a lump of sweet flour and margarine gunge purporting to be “cake”. The excellent CSD apologised profusely for the falling standards….more cost savings! “We are personally very embarrassed”….sums the whole thing up.

    But, yes, but, the chicken curry in CW, two days ago, was quite delicious….shame the dinner and breakfast service was a total shambles, appalling in every respect. Oh for Burgerking quality….?

    Monday rant over!! Cloudy in CPT….


    esselle
    Participant

    Article over the weekend about passenger complaining to crew that his seat was wet on boarding. Transpires it was urine, and response of crew member was to give pax some wet wipes. After complaining pax got some Avios.

    Spoiler….this was in the Daily Mail…..but even so…


    rferguson
    Participant

    [quote quote=823574]For the record, it is BA standard procedure to offer F&B through the divider, not around the end of the seat.

    It’s one of the reasons I really don’t like CW, the divider whizzing up and down during the service.

    [/quote]

    FDOS is absolutely correct. It is how the crew are trained and instructed to serve the food.

    FWIW I nearly always where possible avoid the ‘divider pass’ – for example the bulkhead row(s) and if the aisle seat is unoccupied. Saying that, it’s not ‘standard’ and if I was being assessed i’d be pulled up on it.

    I’m guessing the tray passing action was the ‘discourteous’ aspect. Can the OP shield any more info on the ‘discrimination’?


    capetonianm
    Participant

    passenger complaining to crew that his seat was wet on boarding. Transpires it was urine, and response of crew member was to give pax some wet wipes.

    My last VS flight to CPT, my tray table was filthy and encrusted with grime and crumbs. I politely explained to the FA that whilst I appreciated that it wasn’t their job to clean the aircraft but I wasn’t going to eat my meal looking at that, she brought me a damp cloth and chucked it at me from the aisle to the window seat. Not in a humorous way, but in a ‘nasty bitch’ way. I complained to the cabin manager who didn’t seem to understand why there was a problem, but two minutes later someone came with a cleaning fluid and a cloth.

    It’s not just BA that treats people badly.

    I once had a LH steward get very stroppy with me because during a long overnight sector (MNL-FRA in business class) I went to the galley and asked for a bottle of water and he complained that ‘there are over 500 people on this aircraft and if each one asked for a bottle of water I’d be on my feet all night’. He then told me : “I think you have a problem with German people” which was most inappropriate on his part since I’d never even mentioned nationality, national characteristics, etc. I certainly don’t have a problem with German people, quite the opposite in fact, although I have to say that right now LH are not on my Christmas card list!

    So you get moronic cabin crew with chips on their shoulders everywhere.


    christopheL
    Participant

    To many people on board a flight whatever class they are flying in consider crew members as servants. The way you speak to people is very important especially when you are not from the same
    origin/culture.
    Germans, Brits, Indians, French, Americans, Chinese… all act differently and ignoring the differences between nationalities often create misunderstandings.


    bacrew1
    Participant

    Not defending the crew member or the company at all (we all know what direction BA are heading in from a customer and employee perspective!?)…. However I would like to point out the following:

    – The OP sounds like they aren’t a regular traveller with BA on the JFK-LHR route and may not understand the sleeper serice concept, or pre lounge dining?

    “Flight attendant (Name withheld) was discourteous and what came across as discriminating behavior”

    – How were they discriminating?? Was it against you personally or your whole side?? 15E sound like you were in the back row of a 777… could you even watch the whole service in that cabin, facing rearwards in the last row??.

    “While serving food, she persistently was rude and would simply press the button to bring the screen down and hand over my meal rather than placing it on my tray. Mind you most of these are hot meals!”

    – As mentioned earlier, whether we like it or not it’s the BA service standard and I personally understand all the inconvenience it creates. It is virtually impossible to actually place the entree onto a tray if you’re sat in a middle or window seat (which you were)… especially if you TV screen is out and it over invades the space of the passenger in the aisle. (you even mention yourself “over the screen”)
    Hot meals yes… but they are served on cold charger plates or warmed square plates, so I don’t see what the issue is here?

    “She didn’t bother to serve me an beverage, and this even went noticed by another kind flight attendant who came and served me a glass of wine with my meal”

    – At all??? You didn’t receive a pre take off drink along with a bottle of water? A drink during the bar round after take off?? Glad to see however the other crew spotted this and served you one.

    “I never asked for another thing during the entire journey, having felt completely let down by appalling service”.

    Why on earth not?? you paid alot of money for that seat I presume? They “should” have done regular juice rounds throughout the flight, and also the club kitchen self service area should have been set up. Did you mention anything to the CSD who would have been working in that cabin?, so you should have seen them regularly?

    Very sad to read your poor experience.


    FDOS_UK
    Participant

    bacrew1

    We don’t know the nationality of the OP.

    Though we have certain cultural norms that would mean we would protest if we perceived poor service, some other cultures would find this unthinkable.

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 29 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Business Traveller March 2024 edition
Be up-to-date
Magazine Subscription
To see our latest subscription offers for Business Traveller editions worldwide, click on the Subscribe & Save link below
Polls