I have always thought that flying with BA was one of the best ways of becoming aware of the worst aspects of the English class system. If you are not in first class you are treated like a serf, and its obvious that those looking after you deeply resent having to spend time with the lower classes. Compound that with poor service, incompetent computer systems and you have a recipe for a bad day such as the one I have just lived through.
On this occasion I flew in World Traveller to Vancouver to save money. The sales pitch indicated that this was a a half way house between economy and club, but to be honest it felt like economy on American Airlines, so God help those in BA economy. It took them two hours to get the entertainment system working, the food was dire and thanks to multiple incidents of incompetence (for which I got no apology) I had been reassigned from an aisle seat to a centre middle and we were delayed on take off. Net result ten hours of extreme discomfort, competing one either side for the right to use an arm rest and loosing most of the time. Oh and a toilet was out of action so the average wait was twenty minutes (I was awake unfortunately so conducted a scientific survey). There was no room to work as I had planned on an overdue article and I had seen all the films ......
So arriving in my hotel after the normal hassle with Canadian Immigration (why do one of the most friendly and hospital people in the world have some of the most aggressive immigration officers?) I went onto the BA site to register a complaint and also to ask that someone would make sure the mistake was not repeated on Tuesday when I fly back.
The complaints proceedure was not too hard, the normal obstacles to deter people, but I got through those. Then I got the following message in return:
Thank you for taking the time to contact us, we have set up your file and the reference number can be found above. While you are waiting for a reply from us there is no need to re-send your email. Our aim is to ensure we make contact with you as quickly as we can, this may take around two weeks. We are very grateful for your patience in the meantime and thank you again for contacting us and for giving us an opportunity to respond.
Two weeks? You call that customer relations?
Comments (5)
The effects of the cost-cutting, which they announced so proudly with their last results, seem to be kicking in. I have some inside stories of counter-productive optimisations which I can't post here.
Recently I was returning from the US and was considering an upgrade. Because I'd already changed my flight, I ended up falling off their on-line booking system, so had to do everything by phone (compulsory surcharge, thank you). So (half-hour on hold), how much would an upgrade cost? We have to ask our pricing people, call us back in 48 hours. Thanks, but no thanks.
I was so annoyed I sent an email to the CEO's address and did get a response back in a couple of days, although it was a phone call early in the morning US time, so I wasn't in the best of moods -- so they still lost the income. What I would have liked to have heard was an intention to fix this obviously broken set up.
Posted by Steve Freeman | November 18, 2007 12:17 PM
Posted on November 18, 2007 12:17
I have had similar problems in complaining about Lufthansa. They only want you to complain in specific formats. They keep themselves obscure. If your complaint does not fit the catagories.... there is no one to ask.
The internet is great until it doesn't work.....
Posted by Martin owen | November 18, 2007 11:06 PM
Posted on November 18, 2007 23:06
Funny that one of the precursors to blogging, and a site that helped bring some notoriety to the Web, was www.untied.com, a site that brought customers a previously-unavailable level of visibility to complaints about United Airlines.
Interesting to note that it lives on at least ten years after it was in initiated ;-)
http://www.untied.com/
I suppose BA needs a site with the URL www.bah.com or some such, and Lufthansa ?? www.lefthuh-so.com ??
Posted by Jon Husband | November 19, 2007 12:21 AM
Posted on November 19, 2007 00:21
Although I absolutely hate to fly domestic US airlines of any kind I have to admit I had an excellent experience today with a United rep! I had made vacation plans to Italy but had to reschedule them. The rep was nice, timely, helpful, and in the end I was able to upgrade us both to Business Class without too much cost or hassle.
Maybe the unique positive experience highlights what miserable service we have become accustomed to from airlines. Southwest may be a cattle call for seating, but their folks are always really pleasant.
More interestingly - Dave and I have discussed it in the past. He loves American, hates BA. I am normally disgusted with United, but the few experiences I have had with BA were fine. Jon made jokes about Air Canada when I saw him earlier in the year, but I've never had any issues when I fly them. Are we more sensitive to being treated poorly when it is done to us by a countryman (or countryperson)? Or do we find foreign accents less offensive?
Wayne
Posted by Wayne Zandbergen | November 20, 2007 11:06 PM
Posted on November 20, 2007 23:06
Air Canada, hmmm. They stranded a friend of mine in Montreal for three days.
http://blogs.agilefaqs.com/2007/10/28/stranded-in-montreal/
http://blogs.agilefaqs.com/2007/10/28/living-at-the-mercy-of-air-canada/
Posted by Steve Freeman | November 21, 2007 10:59 AM
Posted on November 21, 2007 10:59