British Airways Consumer Reviews - Page 6

CALIFORNIA -- British Airways misplaced my baggage in transit on a recent business trip to Bangalore, India, from San Jose, CA. I was on American from SJ to London and was supposed to catch a BA connection in London, to Bangalore. My American flight arrived into London late, and consequently, I ended up missing my BA Bangalore connection. My bag, however, had been sent to BA, and BA promptly misplaced it. (A reported 150,000 bags had been misplaced by BA in London Heathrow that week.)

In the meantime, I was rerouted to Bangalore on Air India, and arrived in Bangalore about 13 hours behind schedule. For 9 days after I had landed in Bangalore, BA had not located my bag (they didn't even seem to know where it was). Finally, they located my bag on the 9th day and had it delivered to me on the 11th day, one day before my trip was to conclude and I was to fly back to San Jose.

Of course, all this only after I had wrestled with BA customer service in Bangalore over multiple telephone calls (most of the time there would be no answer – all during normal business hours - and the few times there was an answer, I was put on hold for long durations; there was even a time when I was put on hold and almost immediately, the call got disconnected), and made multiple trips to the airport to track down my bag, all during a hectic business trip!

Since I was without my baggage for a full 11 days after I had landed in India, I had to purchase essential items such as clothes, etc. The BA baggage office in Bangalore asked me to file a claim for my purchases after I returned to the US, and promised that it "will be taken care of, without a problem". After I returned to the US, I faxed receipts of those purchases to BA, asking for reimbursement.

A cool 6 weeks later, I got a terse letter from BA asking me to contact Air India for my claim, since that was the airline I had filed my initial claim with, even though the bag itself was misplaced by BA. Of course, the letter had no contact phone number or email address for BA, and no contact information for Air India. Interestingly, while BA had nothing useful to say in the letter, they had the nerve to say that they hoped to welcome me aboard "a BA flight soon". Please, dear readers, do yourselves a favor. Never ever travel by BA. Incompetence with arrogance - that is a real hard combination to beat!

I wish I knew about BA's terrible reputation before I booked my flight to Morocco, for, if I knew, I would have chosen any other airline. Just Google 'Lost Luggage British Airways' and you will see pages and pages of complaints and warnings unlike any other airline! It is shocking!

I am a frequent traveler, and this was the very first time I EVER flew British Airways, and the very first time I have EVER had my luggage lost. When I tell anyone about my lost luggage, they all roll their eyes as soon as I mention BA! I feel so sorry for all the poor souls who have fallen victim to BA, and now that I have experienced it firsthand, I feel for all of us victims even more.

I chose BA because the flight times appeared better for both departure and arrival... Well, let's just say things did not go as smooth with the flight times and worse, my luggage never made it to Morocco, and still has not made it back to Vancouver.

Nothing can ever replace the inconvenience, frustration, time and various costs spent for travel and staying on hold when calling the baggage claim area, time traveling to and from a remote location in Eljadida to Casablanca Airport (especially after being misinformed a few times that the baggage had arrived), the wasted hope that the baggage would finally appear with all the needed medication, toiletries, gifts for my hosts...

Nothing can make up for what BA and its service areas have done to me on my trip. I just did my best to make the most of my trip despite the lost luggage... and, despite having been let down so much, I still have waning hope that the bag may mysteriously resurface...

I am now starting the process for the Claim Form as it has now been since August 30 that my luggage has been missing. The last I heard was that it was supposed to be on a flight from Malaga, Spain... Wish me luck, and if you have any advice, feel free to contact me!

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA -- How hard is it to manage and track parcels? FedEx does it. Airborne Express does it. Hell, even the US Post Office does it. Why can't British Airways manage luggage, track it, and deliver luggage after it gets misrouted? The answer is not what you might expect. After British Airways lost my luggage on a flight before my Mediterranean cruise, I discovered that lost luggage isn't an accident on British Airways. It is a well known, intentional business process which executive leadership is fully aware. Airplanes have a weight limit. If luggage exceeds the plane's weight limit, certain bags intentionally get left behind and re-routed on later flights.

Sometimes much later flights. Later, some bags are forwarded to passengers at their various destinations. May bags are not. If that isn't enough, BA has a broken business process for delivering lost luggage to vacationing passengers. BA claims that bags can be tracked online, but the online information is seldom updated, and often appears to be inaccurate. For example, our missing bags were spotted in Barcelona, BA said, but the bags turned out to be still at Heathrow. These two bags, both of which BA tracked and located, have never been delivered. One bag that BA claimed was missing entirely showed up at the first port city on our cruise.

In addition, many travel professionals say that BA's barcode system is not an advanced system for baggage tracking and delivery, but rather just a baggage numbering device. What are the executives at British Airways doing, if not managing this severe problem? What are they busying themselves with? In the age of GPS tracking devices and barcode retrieval systems, BA's luggage handling is a modern disaster, and an embarrassment to its executives. They would rather not implement a GPS tracking system, because that would uncover their real problem. They've been misrouting bags intentionally for weight limit reasons. Expose' anyone?

Flying with your airline 6 times within three weeks for my sales trips for Moscow, London, and France. I personally feel that you need to know exactly how badly your customers have been treated by your ground members so you can take appropriate remedial action.

The second time that the plane was delayed the ground member just gave me a blue card and instructed me to email my concerns if I had any. Unquestionable the staff showed no sense of ownership. I would assume that their customers' feedbacks are being ignored, as it has been almost 2 months now and I have not received any reply from your end.

June 19, for flight 349, we were told that there was going to be a delay, I was quite concerned because I have another flight to take from London to Singapore. I do understand that some things are beyond anyone's control. What I am concerned about was the way the ground staff handled the customers. I made my way back to the check-in desk to find out what to do, approached one of your staff. Explaining myself and seeking assistance for my possible luggage transfer to my next flight. After being refused, I was brushed off and told that there was nothing further that he can do and stated that it was the end of our conversation.

This is totally appalling and unbelievable coming from someone of the service industry. To aggravate matters further, instead of offering help he was very repulsive in telling me about the “Treaty of Montreal” to elucidate the issue on security. He was profoundly concerned of the security rather than service for the customers which should have at least been also a matter of their concern. This attitude is evidently prominent with their personnel, they were very unaccommodating, disobliging, unapologetic, and were extremely least concerned of your customer's welfare, absolutely no passion for service.

Their tagline states that British Airways “takes pride in providing a full service experience to passengers”. I think it's time they evaluate this claim because with my experience this statement is conclusively untrue. Furthermore, I flew 2 times in Business class and 4 times in Economy and sad to say, these two classes were indistinguishable, no special touch and no exclusive service.

Willie Walsh as one of the leaders of this company I believe that he should be mindful of the bigger picture, as he may have conceivably lost touch with his ground members resulting to passenger's dissatisfaction and frustration, which I presume is unacceptable as a service-oriented airline.

LONDON -- I tried calling BA to find out information on cancelling my business class seat to LA tomorrow. They did not answer their customer services number for 45 minutes but sales calls answered in 30 seconds, it was 06.05 this morning when I made the call and was not answered and was instead directed towards the website by the on hold message where it May be cheaper to cancel, I wanted to find out what if I cancelled as wasn't feeling too well, and inquire if I could move the ticket but not actually cancel.

No one answered so I went to the website where they asked for the credit card details in order to give the information, I entered them, and it told me I got 0 back but the taxes, I went to cancel the cancellation process but the process is so unclear when you press cancel, you cancel the tickets. It gave me no chance to stop this, and the tickets were cancelled.

10 minutes later after being on hold, I was told I should have held for 3 hours, and they attempted to blame the travel agent. They did not care, they were trying to sell me a new ticket for 4 times the cost. Message to BA - make the website clearer. Answer the phones in reasonable time to business class. Not be rude and say the flight is undersold and should have waited on hold for 3 hours. Be bothered about a customer. Admit customer relations is just for lost baggage.

My partner has left me as her dream holiday has been ruined by my stupid mistake when her bags were packed to go, she has now left for a different reason. They knew all about it and didn't care, didn't offer me anything, only rude to me, told me to go to the sales office, they contradicted themselves, and didn't accept they should not use the work cancel as cancel as I tried to cancel the cancellation process and not the ticket. They didn't help.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA -- After a horrible check-in in Kuwait City on July 25th 2007 and being seated for eight hours without in-flight entertainment we arrived in Heathrow. After multiple delays in Heathrow, the world's worst airport, at 2 AM in the morning we arrived in Washington, DC Dulles airport. I arrived sans luggage and too groggy to go to work that day.

One day later I get a call and one of my bags arrived to my home at 11 PM at night on is still mia. Two days later I get a cell phone call from a random man out in California stating that LAX airport delivered my luggage by accident to him. British Airways doesn't even fly to LAX and somebody in Heathrow put my luggage on an American Airlines (BA's co-carrier) flight to LA. How this happened I don't know.

After calling customer service explaining this, nothing was done for two more days and ten phone calls later to customer service. My husband and I irate at this point went on Sunday July 29th to Dulles in person to complain and explain to a real live human being that my luggage was now in LA. This was never recorded via phone or online by BA no matter how many times I explained it. Then I get a call yesterday from American Airlines stating my luggage was on one of two possible flights from LAX to Dulles airport.

It is now the 31st of July and after calling Dulles airport my luggage is not there and BA does not know where it is. Here I was feeding them information to where my luggage went all along and they didn't even know to begin with. Now they still cannot find it??? I then checked online. The bag that was delivered on the 26th was a black bag. The bag missing is silver. The online info states the silver bag was delivered and not the black one on July 26th. They even mixed that up. Maybe one day I'll see my luggage. My lovely oriental carpets and perfumes that I bought overseas. All my gifts for friends and family. The $5,000 dollars I lost in paying for it all!

On June 22nd of 2007, Grand Circle Travel scheduled for me and my traveling companion airline tickets to Vienna with a stop in London. We were going to be traveling on the MS Debussy for a sixteen day river cruise. Being teachers, we were so looking forward to this vacation especially when all the people associated with GCT would tell us this was one of the finest trips.

However, it was not a fine trip for us. You see, British Airways lost our luggage. Not just for one day or two, but for the entire trip plus three days. As a matter of fact, as of today we are still missing one of the suitcases. Do you realize how hard it is for two adult women to vacation for three weeks without luggage? Thank goodness we did take one extra outfit in our carry-on luggage.

Since our arrival in Chicago on July 10th, I have been on the internet or calling British Airways to find the location of the missing suitcase. On July 3rd, I was in Belgium and went to the Brussels Airport to see if anyone could help me locate the suitcase. In Brussels, British Airways personnel told me that the suitcase was located in Frankfurt, Germany. As of today, they do not know where of its whereabouts.

Several things come to mind as I try to sort out our truly large problem. I spent over $500 Euros calling British Airways or calling family in the United States, so they could call British Airways to find the suitcase. At one time, BA told my family that one suitcase was in Milan, Italy. Why on earth would our luggage be in Milan?

My traveling partner and I had been looking forward to this beautiful river boat cruise for almost a year. We went out before our departure from Chicago and bought a lot of new clothes. Of course, buying the new clothes for our trip did us no good. We have traveled to Europe on numerous occasions, but this is the first that any airlines have lost our luggage and it seemed like no one at British Airways wanted to help us or to take responsibility. We still are getting the “runaround.”

ORD, WISCONSIN -- I have tried everything possible. This is just one more way to get BA to do something. Mr. Walsh, firstly, I am sorry that I have to escalate this to you. However, I am left with no choice. I have tried everything possible to seek help from your staff worldwide but have reached a dead end at each stage. Let me give you a background of the problem.

My mother-in-law aged 75 travelled from Bangalore (BLR) to Chicago (ORD). At least was to reach Chicago which did not happen. I booked her on BA thinking that an airline of your repute will ensure a comfortable and safe journey which did not happen. Her flight BA0118 from Bangalore was delayed. At Bangalore they told her that she would be rerouted through New York (JFK) and onward to Chicago by AA. However, this did not happen. On arrival at JFK she was told that there is no booking for her onward journey to Chicago and after haggling a lot put up in a hotel (Holiday Inn) with an assurance that she will fly the next day i.e. 27th June to Chicago.

On 27th, at the airport she was told that her ticket is a standby ticket and that they cannot assure her a seat on any day! So she was left all alone in the airport with no accommodation, baggage, food or cash. Finally, I had to make a new booking for her to fly from New York to Chicago. To top all this her baggage is yet to be traced. For your information she cannot speak English so you can imagine the trauma she and the family went through. BA did not even bother to give her $1 for a coffee and instead the New York Police picked her up etc. I am sure this will make an interesting story in the press.

I have tried my best to seek help from your staff. Your system of seeking help is one of the most difficult I have come across. I cannot get a single mail ID, phone or address to speak to anyone and each one points to someone else. Please could you intervene and find her baggage and compensate/refund me for at least the extra ticket that I purchased for her to finally reach Chicago? I am sincerely hoping that I will not meet a dead end with this mail leaving me with no option but seek legal help.

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- My wife and I have flown in BA many times between India and the US. We never had to change the booking till now. This time my wife has to come back early from her trip to India. This is when I realized that BA has unreasonable terms of service in the ticket. I booked the ticket through an online travel agent (Orbitz). I did not notice that hiding behind a 'fare rules' link was a long fare basis code in all-caps that said 'CANCELLATIONS ANY TIME TICKET IS NON-REFUNDABLE'.

Most international flights can be cancelled for a fee of $50-200 for a full refund. I was able to cancel my Air France ticket for $200. BA does not refund anything for cancellations. I wonder why anyone will cancel such a ticket. They do not let you change flights before you fly -- because only the travel agent can change the ticket. The travel agent gave me a quote for $3400 to change the return leg one month in advance. It costs only $1000 to book a new one-way ticket from India to US. Unable to change the tickets, the Orbitz rep kept forwarding me to BA, and the BA rep refused to handle any changes to the ticket.

Finally, I bullied one of the reps to give me the phone to the manager, and the manager said that I could change the ticket once my wife flew the first leg. My wife flew to India hoping to change the return ticket. Now the customer service reps in India's BA offices have excuses ranging from 'there are no tickets available from London to Boston in July' to 'our computer network is down'. I am trying to change the tickets from the US and I'm getting the run-around too. They have forwarded my 'request' to a 'pricing department' that takes 48 hours to come up with a rate for changing the tickets.

Unfortunately, I have no option but to wait for 2 days. In all likelihood they are going to take all the money ($1800 round trip) and probably ask for $1000 more to book another ticket. I will probably book a new one-way ticket from India in another airline and let the other return ticket go to waste. I realize now that there is no such thing as a 'sure plan', and it makes no sense to go with an airline that is inflexible. I typically fly twice a year to India on official business and my wife flies once a year. We will never fly in BA again. We will also make it a point to warn our friends and colleagues about their 'KICK 'EM WHEN THEY'RE DOWN' fine-print.

LONDON -- Flight BA1463 (19:20) Edinburgh - London Heathrow -T1 24th June 2007. Issues:

1) Delayed by 2 hours due to problems with ground staff employed by BA.
2) A bag that did not belong to me had been checked in under my name - MAJOR SECURITY BREACH!
3) The Plane had not been cleaned properly from the previous flight.
4) When mentioning to the Captain about an ear piercing noise coming from the wall of the cabin, his answer was "We will look into it, although it sounds like there is a breach on the outer skin, forcing air inside the cabin walls".
Not surprising when BA owns one of the oldest fleets in the world.
5) On arrival at Heathrow, passengers had to wait for over 2 hours for their luggage. Only a few trolleys worth of luggage were placed onto the conveyor belt. The rest was never processed, as they had to concentrate on other flights.
6) Only one customer service rep was servicing all domestic/international flights in Terminal 1. When asked where her colleagues were, her reply was;-"They have gone home as they have completed their shifts. We are trying to employ more staff but it takes a long time because of the security checks"!
7) British Airways has apparently given their baggage handling mandate to a company that has only ever serviced 55 flights a week. They now have to service 55 flights a day... They cannot cope!!
8) Not once was identification asked for at any stage of the day!
9) I have now been holding for 1hr30 mins on the lost baggage phone line!

Conclusion: A shabby service that is totally unreliable and unsafe due to the lack of security guarding baggage. This is an airline which charges premium rates for a budget service. British Airways is a complete embarrassment to the nation. There is no doubt that internal flights are ignored, as they simply cannot compete with the budget airlines effectively. As a result, the resources in both human man-power and electronic systems have been cut, which is destroying the system and the patience of their passengers!