I have been flying to the US regularly from England and have noticed a consistent erosion in the quality of its booking process, website, call centre and ground staff. The British Airways website is unreliable and prone to returning baffling errors even when carrying out the simplest of activities. Its upgrade path is impenetrable and designed to confuse, call centre staff do not seem to speak English and make ridiculous requests and ground staff are didactic. Examples: Cannot check in online, but via the app on a smartphone, no problem (except I wanted a printed boarding pass). Call centre staff in India wanted to speak to my 5 year old daughter when my family accompanied me one one trip, as she was on a different booking and wouldn't give me her flight reference number "for security reasons". No problem with "security reasons" when I paid BA a lot of money for the ticket. Upgrading with points or Avios fails in the middle of a transaction. The system remains unavailable to check you in for some time after, so you have to call the call centre. BA blacks out so many flights from purchasing with Avios, it's not worth trying unless you're jobless and can fly any time, and don't care where you go. In the queue for boarding my passport wasn't open at the right page and the staff at the gate admonished me as a result. On another occasion at passport control after checking in I was directed back to the BA desk I'd just come from. "There's nothing wrong with your passport, it must be BAA. It's not us", was the response. It took a huffing, tutting, BA duty manager to run the visa check again. I advise people to avoid BA if possible. The only reason for choosing BA is flight safety. But other airlines manage that too, with a smile. So, no excuse.
Boeing 777 |
Business |
Premium Economy |
LHR to AUS |
November 2015 |
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Food & Beverages |
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Wifi & Connectivity |
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no |