Disgusted with British Airways

I agree that one experience does not a bad airline make. However, if you are inconvenienced, you have the right to express your displeasure. As much as I love UA and the Star alliance, they have inconvenienced me in the past several times, and they have heard about it. I simply write a very professional email expressing my displeasure, but at the same time pledging my continued loyalty to UA and Star and also express my faith that my inconvenience will be alleviated by a voucher or something. It has worked wonders in the past.

About a year ago, I flew LIN (Linate, Milan) to MAN via LHR. The stopover at LHR was about 2 hours and the airline was BMI.

My suitcase made it to LHR fine, but somehow (?!!) missed the connection to MAN. I arrived at MAN on the last flight of the day.

I was staying at the Radisson hotel at the airport before taking a mid-morning flight on BA to IOM the next day.

I politely asked if they could put my bags on the first flight up the next morning; I was extremely irritated when they told me no, and I had to fly home with no baggage. They spent a lot of money returning it to me in IOM, just because they were too useless to put my bags on the 1st or even 2nd flight of the next day. Pathetic.

Originally posted by mongu
Thrice, my bags disappeared only to reappear on my doorstep by courier about 12 hours later

I can see a pattern emerging! 12 hours appears to be the norm with British Airways. Even though my bag was flown from Manchester to Edinburgh at 1.00pm in the afternoon, it wasn’t delivered to me until nearly 9.00pm – but when I asked in my letter where it was between 1.00pm and 9.00pm, they didn’t say!

Ah well! 🙂

It’s happened to me as well –

Twice, I missed my train connection after a delayed late night arrival into MAN from IOM. They forked out £200 each time for a taxi to Hull.

Thrice, my bags disappeared only to reappear on my doorstep by courier about 12 hours later.

Not great, but in my experience they do put things right. The annoying part is a chronic lack of communication at times.

I’m afraid it’s the same with all airlines. Quite a few of them have screwed around with my baggage.

Its like when I pre-ordered a model and a pen for the return flight with MyTravel. The return flight was subbed by TCX and they said we had to get in touch with them. Sent them a letter with a scan of the ticket and receipt enclosed and got back a letter saying they were ‘looking into it’. Have heard absolutely nothing since depsite various letters and emails.

On the subject of airlines contacting you, or not…

I guess maybe this is one for airlines to learn about how you or I feel in this circumstance, but the simple fact is that they won’t contact you!

Put simply, you report your bag missing and fill in the report. They will (hopefully) find your bag, and deliver it to you, contacting you only at this stage if necessary to make arrangements.

As I said before, phone calls along the way don’t speed up the process, so they won’t make them, and they don’t expect you to.

Like I said, perhaps airlines need to appreciate that this is a bigger deal to us than they think and understand that a phone call would help reassure us.

1L.

Thanks very much for all your replies! It’s good (or not so good) to hear some of your own experiences with airlines who decide to deliver your baggage very late or quite simply lose it altogether!

I think the main reason that I was frustrated (and still am) is that they made no effort to ever contact me. Although they had made the mistake, not once did anyone quickly call me to explain what was going on, or to apologise. In fact, the first apology I received was in the letter from the airline during the middle of this week.

A380, I don’t necessarily agree with much of what you’ve written. It’s all valid stuff, but I’ve flown British Airways a fair few times now (only on short haul – domestic and European sectors) and have found them not only overpriced, but have been disappointed by what’s on offer. The 150 million bags handled by Heathrow is irrelevant to my whining because I flew from Gatwick, which handles nowhere near that many bags each year. Do you also think they care for their passengers when they leave it to me (and other people in my situation) to find out what on earth is going on with lost luggage? That seems quite poor to me. Finally, are you suggesting that lost luggage on a domestic flight should be forgotten about? I hope not!

But anyway, thanks again. I’ve written a letter to them and put in the post box today. If I get no joy, I lose the price of a postage stamp – already lost enough! 😀

And Matthew Murray, next time it will be British Midland :p

Sorry to hear about your luggage problems. I have been there myself and know it can be a pain, but I have to say that I have always had good service in getting my bag back to me, both with BA and others.

I would like to think that in the interest of trying to appease you that your £8 would be refunded.

I suspect however that the answer will be that you didn’t HAVE to make the calls, and that you certainly didn’t HAVE to call at peak mobile rates, I think phone boxes still exist!

If you hadn’t made the calls the likelyhood is that the baggage tracing system would have got your bag back to you in the same amount of time. If you made the calls in the hope of hurrying things along a: they wouldn’t have done so, and b: making them will be viewed as your own choice.

That said I still hope you get your cash back.

1L.

ps: It’s a looooong time since BA claimed to be “the worlds favourite airline!”

The more worrying point of lost luggage is the security angle. Say it’s realised that a suspect person has got on a flight but the deparure is held. All the luggage is unloaded but his bag is missing. Do you A: Stop all other flights on which the bag could now be or B: Wait and hope that the bag (and the plane) turn up somewhere? The number of bags on a flight should tally with the number checked in, so presumably another person’s bag went astray as well. 🙁
mmitch.

Its simple.

Every airline has baggage problems. LHR handles 150,000,000 a year. Its not all that unlightly that the airline may somehow loose your possesions. You should not set a bad reputation/sterotype on a airline based on one rare experience, they are generally a great airline, considering:

*they are based at the s-h-i-t hole that is LHR
*they actually care about passenger comfort/opinion
*they have a good domestic network throughout the UK (unlike other airlines like Virgin Atlantic who make a profit only from longhual sectors)
*dozens of LON-EDI/ED-LON flights go ahead everyday and they still bother to look for lost baggage en-route flights.

I think I’ve beem lucky with the lost baggage problem. Obviously the fault is either a genuine mistake or some taking a “Couldn’t care less attitude”. The bottom line is that one day, for whatever reason, your bags are not going to turn up, and it makes sense to travel with the basic necessities in your cabin bag.
The time my baggage failed to arrive at the carousel that annoyed me most was after a flight (on different airlines) SYD-MNL-AMS-MAD-BCN-PMI. The bags didn’t get through BCN which was extremely frustrating when they had got so far before that!
Recently my luggage didn’t make it through a very tight change in Vienna. I arrived at LHR about 2230 and was almost immediately informed that my bags were still in Vienna. They were delivered to my home on the Isle of Wight mid-afternoon the next day – can’t really complain about that.
A few years ago the BA manager in Palma gave me some very good advice which I often make use of – when you get to the boarding lounge, ask the staff if they would be so good as to check if your bags have been put on the aircraft. It only takes a minute on the computer to check, and I’ve never been refused the check, nor have my bags failed to arrive after making that check.:)

Lost Delayed Luggage

LAST FIVE TRIPS through Frankfurt to Leeds Bradford & my luggage hasn’t made it

Follows on 12 – 24 hours later – covered in Security Stickers except of course XMAS Eve, when it was 48 hours late

Fortunately no Pressies inside, I’m slow but I do learn – that much so that in future I’ll be travelling Emirates to Manchester & their ‘limo’ to the door – Yes I’m lucky & travel Business Class!!!

So far no apologies, compensation or !!! – apparently BMI should handle as they do the last leg, but they don’t go out of their way despite the Diamond Club GOLD Card – though as I say the Prime fault is Lufthansa and Frankfurt

But this does not make them a bad company right? ive flew long with BA on several occasions and have never had any trouble with them, but human nature dictates as soon as you have a bad experience with anything you repel it, if i bought a Ford Mondeo (god forbid) and it kept breaking down i wouldnt buy another but this doesnt make it a bad motor.
We all make mistakes dont we eh? can you remember your last mistake? i can.

D.

Hi T5

Sorry to hear about the problems you encountered with BA.

I’m sure you know, all airlines have problems with undelivered baggage at some time or other.

I work for BA as long haul cabin crew and I fully understand your frustration. I’ve never had my baggage go missing either as a passenger or crew but I can imagine how annoying it must be.

The fare you paid is imaterial, you still deserve a level of customer service and if you are not happy with the response you have recieved then keep at them and hopefully you will get the money back for your phone calls.

A few years ago I spent 2 months working in our customer service dept, due to skiing accirdent I couldn’t fly for a while. That 2 months opened my eyes to some of the the most rediculous things passengers try to claim for and the excuses they use. In your case I think BA should pay you for your phone calls, you checked your baggage in with us in good faith expecting it to be delivered to your destination airport, it wasn’t so you had to make various calls to sort it out, end of story, we should pay up!!!! The baggage system in place now is so sophisticated that it is almost impossible for it (the system) to make an error, the error would have been human, either the checkin agent using the wrong destination code or the ramp loader for loading your bag into the wrong baggage pod.

Keep at them and hopefully you’ll get your money back, good luck and I hope this doesn’t put you off using BA again in the future.

All the best.

Hey T5

Sorry to hear about your experience with BA!

I had a “lost luggage experience with Lufthansa a few years back – they were very good about it, luggage was “taxi-ed” to my hotel in Germany after 24Hrs. Also got a choice of either Dm100 in cash or Dm300 Lufthansa voucher; I took the latter & ended up with some nice luggage & bits’n’bobs worth aprox DM298!

Try flying with either Sleazy Jet or Brian Air (now they don’t care, it’s customer service by numbers!) – BA cannot be that bad!

Sorry to hear about your problems while travelling with BA, but I will agree that they did **** up and theres no excuse for it. But I’m surprised they even offered to pay for you to get some essentials, theres no where in writing that sais they have to give you anything and They could have just said “Better claim from Travel Insurance”, and yes I know most people don’t think about getting any insurance when travelling up the road, so you got quite lucky there. With the mobile phone bill, why use a mobile phone, and it’s not BA’s fault that there lost baggage phone line is only open during peak times on your phone plan.

Sorry but it did look like you were trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

FD

Fortunatley my experiences of BA have not been anything like this, however I would recomend some email communication as well, telling them how ****ed off you are with them and the fact that they haven’t even given you an explanation.
Besides, you have nothing to lose, and it shouldn’t cost you anything 🙂

I’m quite dissapointed to read this…not because I’m personally not much of a fan of BriSh1t Airways but because you have always supported them and their 767’s. I’m sorry they’ve upset you Michael.

Originally posted by T5
The fact that I paid £70 and supposedly got a cheap deal does not mean that I do not qualify for proper service.

And as for not having receipts? My initial letter mentioned that copies of my telephone bill and receipts were available should they want them.

It may also be just £8, to you lot, that’s nothing. You clearly have a very comfortable salary. Me, however, I’m a typical Higher Education student, practically skint and earning a few hundred pounds each month. I cannot afford to lose that money, that could get me to work and college for a week by bus!

I certainly will not get over it either. I will get something out of them.

Good luck.
I do not earn a comfortable salary at all. I couldn’t even afford the £70 you paid for your flight.

I’m not saying cheap price = cheap service. All I’m saying is, with todays cost cutting, some things are bound to go wrong. You unfortunately pulled the short straw.

It is my experience that sh!t happens. you just need to learn to deal with it and move on.

I wouldn’t start chasing after that £8, you’ll spend more on stamps and more phonecalls to them. They are not legally obliged to refund the cost of communications.

They refunded your extra expense relating to the luggage. Personally, I’d be happy. But thats just me.

The fact that I paid £70 and supposedly got a cheap deal does not mean that I do not qualify for proper service.

And as for not having receipts? My initial letter mentioned that copies of my telephone bill and receipts were available should they want them.

It may also be just £8, to you lot, that’s nothing. You clearly have a very comfortable salary. Me, however, I’m a typical Higher Education student, practically skint and earning a few hundred pounds each month. I cannot afford to lose that money, that could get me to work and college for a week by bus!

I certainly will not get over it either. I will get something out of them.