Britsh Airways losing the plot

[uk 75]

Last night I was on board an 8 year old British Airways A320
from Berlin to London. For a half an hour after take off the route map screen showed us zigzagging round Berlin until
the pilot told us that because some hydraulic equipment had failed he was returning to Berlin. We landed and the plane parked up in a hard shelter and the pilot told the passengers that ground staff would look after us. We were bussed back to a terminal where one harassed chap from a local agent- not BA of course asked us to wait for news.
An hour later after two more locals joined him we were told we would have to come back at 0700 the next day. We were then given an unsigned letter from BA in London saying we would have to find our own hotels but that EU law forced BA to allow us to clsim it back
The local agents were trying to find a lengthy que of passengers rooms. Fortunately I had given my travel agent my mobile phone number and BA textef me with a new flight
at 1230 today. Fortunately the hotel I had stayed in in Berkin had a room and I could use their Internet to confirm the flight. I am using it to post this before enjoying at least s sunny morning.
On the bus back from the airport I remembered a lovely old 60s film where Richarf Butyon and Margaret Rutherford were fogbound in London and BOAC put them all up in a London hotel.
I dread to think what British Toad will be like after Brexit.

 

[Grey Havoc]

British Airways has indeed really gone downhill in the last decade or two, by all accounts.

 

[DWG]

I don't think it's just BA, it's pretty much everyone. Easyjet had a passenger assaulted by ground handling staff at Nice at the weekend, which is at least better than United sending in the cops to drag a 70yo doctor down the aisle, while El Al lost a court case for ordering an 82yo Holocaust survivor to move because an ultra-orthodox man refused to sit next to her.

And let's not get into the mess that is disabled passenger handling, with only trashing 3% of wheelchairs carried considered 'good'.

 

[Foo Fighter]

All the airlines seem to be going down the slippery slope of hard nosed business practice over customer care. They seem to have forgotten that the passenger is their wage packet, their sick pay and their pensions too. Good customer service generally seems harder to find than ever.

 

[GeorgeA]

Sadly, unless you're in the front of the plane, you're just self-loading cargo. The airlines are focused on their best customers and the occasional or coach-bound-by-policy flier is just in the way. United and Delta, and I assume other airlines, are even building VVIP lounges within their VIP lounges to cater to the upper tier of their best customers, whom one suspects aren't being offered a half of a Coke and 3/16ths of an ounce of Doritos on a BOS-SEA nonstop.

Not that the passengers are blameless . . . do you really have to bring your K2-spec backpack on the plane and hit me in the head with it while you're rotating around in the aisle, looking for the appropriate space in the overheads that you knew wouldn't exist when you boarded?

 

[uk 75]

George
I agree with you about the mega hard hand baggage. The days of the little Airline bag with BOAC or Pan Am on it
have gone. Though I must admit that I do cheat and overload a soft bag to avoid the fight at the Baggage Carousel.
For both railways and airlines humans are "walking freight". What I object to with BA, I think, is that it is still trying
to spoof us into thinking we get something extra for our money. But then, perhaps its my fault for living closer to
Thiefrow than Gatportairwick or Dunstable