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There are approximately 200 more staff that have to go through home office clearance to work at peak hours btw. Gatwick is in a better state these days.
Hi Dan know exactly what you mean. I was on the same flight from Doha as you and could not believe the absolute disgraceful episode after landing. It was a nightmare of ridiculous errors and BA should have taken this up with airport management. Great video all the best Patrick
Sounds to me like you need a proper job - self funded what on earth do you do apart from whinge to get attention to your youtube antics? You don't seem to travel cattle class too much.
Thing is Dan what you do is spot on. And it will save people from spending thousands on below par service. You make excellent content and were most reviewers maybe are bit too political you say it as it is and for that you get 10/10 from me. Try Aer Lingus I am from Ireland and would be curious to see what you think. Take care pal.
Dan, I work for BA. We’ve always been hopeless at handling disruption. Combine that with a little bit of bad weather and the permanent staff shortages and the operation falls to pieces. The company won’t spend money in building resilience into the system and instead chases profits instead of a reliable schedule.
Are they still recommending abandonded churches as good accomodation for single females with no where to go once a flight is delayed over 6 hours? Just curious here.
As retired cabin crew, i can tell you that when Lord King, and Lord Marshall retired, the Company collapsed. Most staff as you found out are replaced with cheap temp staff. Management treated all workers with total contempt and as you can see, the effect has rubbed off. Until BA gets a management that inspires and uplifts their workers nothing will change.
Totally agree, Lord King and Colin Marshall who were in charge when I started with BA in 1988 would be spinning in their graves! I think the rot set in when Willie Walsh took over, and he's continued to damage everything he's been involved with since. As for the pandemic and 'fire and rehire' that's why you encountered the young cabin crew without much experience. I used to be so proud to work for BA, now I'm just ashamed and embarrassed.
I've known BA to be crappy since times immemorial. When I was moving to US, only BA flight required visa for UK and was substantially more expensive than KLM and Lufthansa - the consequence of airport and airline (dis)organization. Essentially they don't give a damn, they know you won't fly again any time soon. The term "returning customer" is not in their dictionary 😃 At least now you know why you don't see reviews of BA flights 😇 The word gets around quite fast. BTW try to do something international via Amsterdam - the airport is quite magical inside - at least the one I remember.
Hi Dan! I am a US based mainline flight attendant and I want to thank you for highlighting the verbal abuse directed at the BA crew and expressing empathy for them during the insane ground time at LHR. I absolutely love my career and the opportunity to offer professional and caring service to our passengers but I know what it is like to be berated because of operational delays beyond the crew's control. It means a lot that you emphasized these things despite the frustrating ground time. Also, I am a big fan of both this channel as well as your adventures with Oskar!
Daniel, not to say I don’t believe you, but I find it difficult to believe paxs will blame crew members especially when it’s explained that it’s an operational delay out of their control. I’m a gate agent and I feel like airport customer service agents always get much worse treatment than FAs. Not to say it doesn’t happen but that’s generally my experience, and I’m curious to hear about certain situations when you guys took flak. Edit: there--> their*
@@knotationmusic As retired BA cabin crew I can assure you that this abuse happens. Perhaps not on such a large scale as in this report, but individually, certainly.
The thing with BA but also many other companies/institutions in the UK is that when things go well, it’s all perfectly smooth and easy, but if something goes wrong the whole system crumbles down. They are not very flexible and adaptable.
I’m Crew, and we’re all embarrassed by the LHR ground service. No buses, wheelchair support non-existent etc. We get tons of abuse about it & we’re just as embarrassed & angry about it too as we have just finished a busy flight/shift & these things delay us getting home or being commuters getting our flights home. Sadly the -4 temperatures meant planes waiting to be de-iced causing the gates being used until slots become available. Delays mean build up of more ice, it’s a never ending problem.
I will agree that BA crew in the main are excellent but LHR ground staff are truly bad (in the main). I have never seen a more reactionary/unreasonable and lazy bunch of 'workers' in my life. They are a national embarrassment.
I speaking to Mum last night, wanting to fly to New Zealand to see my sister, she specifically requested to not fly via LHR (or LGW) because of ground staff issues with wheelchairs. British Airways is the British Leyland of the sky. The management have lost touch with reality and it is selling a poor product. People are voting with their wallets.
Had a terrible time at LHW . No wheelchair turned up for me . Finally got one last minuet nearly missing my connection. Pushed into the wheelchair and ran through the airport. My hand luggage with all my medicines was left after me. No medication during my stay in NY.and had to pay 120 pounds to get it back w months later
I’m so sorry that crew have to bear the brunt of irate passengers, most of whom could be a damn sight more understanding. But for many, it’s not just inconvenient but genuinely upsetting and even distressing. Imagine being disabled or in chronic pain or managing small children or all 3 while being messed around so badly, all while spending money that may have taken years to save up. The bosses should be ashamed.
I used to be an onboard manager with BA. Its been like this for YEARS! This certainly isn't a one off. The company couldn't care less about their passengers. They'd happily send an aircraft out with not enough food, no food at all, broken toilets that you can't even flush, no IFE at all, premium cabin seats that don't even go into a flat bed. The list goes on. The ground handling is like this practically on a daily basis. Once they have your money, they couldn't care less. The poor cabin crew are treated like dirt. Ohh how the mighty have fallen. BA was amazing back in the day but that ship has long sailed. Its a national embarrassment these days.
All the Anglo Saxon airlines are going down the same route. All the North American airlines are terrible and Qantas has become so bad the CEO just resigned. I think they're grappling with staff shortages and fierce competition from Asian Carriers who are giving a far better product experience and competitive prices.
Ah, it is just like I said, the British are not British anymore... No offence, but I'm British and emmigrated to Canada, a similar natured country...but this past quarter of a century it too has slowly gone downhill. Immigrants are moving here in the thousands and I cant understand their language or ways. Not many can. This is how I see things:- I would never emmigrate to a country that I could not speak the language or knew their culture, for me to fit in. I would never dream of insisting people born and raised here behaved the same as myself, and immigrant. Its their country.. Heres hoping the i's have been dotted to my statement. I wish everyone the very best, and pray things get better, for all.
Hi Dan, I would say its lack of staff thats the problem, not equipment. British Airways are on a massive recruitment drive at the moment. They got rid of to many people during covid, its their own fault 100%
Yep. My partner had worked there for 16 years and they used Covid as an excuse to rip up her contract, cut her pay, cut her allowances and make her work long haul, despite the fact she chose to stop working long haul 12 years ago when she became a mother. She realised she would be far worse off financially than she was 10 years earlier, so took the redundancy offered. Just like thousands of other long term cabin and ground crew who BA screwed over. They just wanted to get rid of them so they could pay recruit younger people and pay them far less. Staff turnover used to be unheard of at BA. Now it’s ridiculously high.
Brexit means that we have no one to drive the buses or push back trucks…..This is what the idiots voted for and so the county will be forced to suffer the consequences. Those who voted for Brexit have brought the country down to the their own level , which is the lowest common denominator
Totally agree - I was flying with heathrow business a few months back and the flight was delayed. Few hours after sitting at the gate, airport security came and told us the airport is closing our flight must have been cancelled and all BA staff had went home! Families stranded, kids sleeping on floor etc. My business seat was replaced with an economy seat the next day, had to sort hotel etc myself, no refreshment or vouchers etc. They just replied after three months saying they will pay the hotel and nothing else (no compensation for downgrade, no cancellation compensation as apparently there were thunderstorms in heathrow (blazing sunshine that day!). Ironically I had a delay with easyjet a week after that, and they arranged a great hotel stay for everyone, transport, room service meal covered, and all prepaid including taxis, and compensation paid within 2 weeks. I think it's time to accept BA is just a budget airline these days (and not a very good one), not to mention their app and tech solutions are very poor.
I totally agree with you about the other stuff, but not the app. It isn’t confusing in my opinion, and is pretty easy compared to other airlines to use, but that doesn’t really make up for the bad experience.
This is a revelation to me. I have had a few bad experiences flying over the years - but nothing compared to this. I've always found BA's pricing prohibitive compared to other airlines. I simply cannot understand the logic behind people paying for a business class ticket and then being forcebly dumped to an economy class without any consequence for the airline. How are they able to do this legally? It is a disgrace that they can get away with this practice. They will reap the whirlwind eventually though, when a foreign national picks up BA for a song. Idiots.
This is what happens when the system is collapsing. These companies treat their lower level employees like dirt do no one wants to work for this evil system anymore. We’re done.
@@Xandro_B20 not quite but very close to it, in the London area, roles such as baggage handlers are paid £10.45 which is not minimum wage but ridiculous, you can earn more in a low level retail job
Great insight, it has been chaos at LHR. The problem is a chronic shortage of staff in all roles across the airport. Thousands of staff were made redundant during the pandemic and then asked to return on lower pay, many (rightly) refused causing huge operational delays
@@jillwallace1319 it plays none whatsoever. The comment above demonstrates exactly the reason. Christ are people still blaming Brexit when every airport in Europe is the same!!? Get your heads out of your a***s and make a success of it!
@@jillwallace1319 Only because they cannot dip into an endless supply of suckers wishing to work for worse and worse conditions you cannot realistically support a family on in that area of the country in an eternal race to the bottom. They could have solved this by not firing staff en-masse or they can pay a proper wage.
The whole experience with BA is a nightmare and Heathrow in general. In November I waited for 2 hours for my luggage to come off my BA flight and arrive at the carousel. Passengers were tired after a 12 hour flight and this was really a disgrace.
You have my sympathy. We've lost connecting flights from Heathrow even when arriving 2 hours before departure. Brexit is just another reason to avoid Britain's inefficient managers and lazy workers.
Same experience for me, except after 2 hours of waiting, I came to discover my baggage was being held at transit holdings instead of delivering it to me for a layover. When asked for it, they said the area is closed and I wouldn't have access to my luggage until my final destination. No one wanted to help me but so many staff were literally standing around chatting with each other.
I've only ever flown BA since I was born, so i thought it was normal to wait a long time for bags. I flew Norwegian last week and my bags were right there, on the outbound and return flight, barely five minutes after I got off the plane.
I always feel embarrassed for the actions of some people towards flight crew members when they have no control of the flight (weather related, logistic issues…etc)
This happened to me too about a week ago- where the “system” at LHR “blocked” me and did not allow me to proceed on to my connecting flight because I was “too late,” telling me I needed to go to the customer service desk instead. I lucked out and a BA “supervisor” randomly showed up and she told the security attendant to let me through. I made my next flight- which was an American Airlines codeshare flight to LAX that left exactly on-time. My entire travel experience from LA to Dublin via LHR, both outbound and returning, was the worst I have ever experienced all because of British Airways and the situation at Heathrow. As a customer who flies out of LAX and therefore has many other options, this experience alone made me decide to never fly BA again, even if their cost, routing, flight-time, etc. was better than the alternative.
I totally agree with you Dan. I'm English and I remember in the not too distant past when BA was one of the best airlines in the world. Not so anymore. Basically, BA just don't give a shit and they wonder why they are losing business to other airlines, right, left and centre. I'm afraid the Asian and Arab airlines took over airline business years ago and continue to make a good job of it.
That’s because the service and hospitality and seats, food and technology etc is far more superior on these gulf Arab airlines such as emirates and qatar airways and etihad to what you would get on British airways and it’s usually the same price for a ticket to the same destination funny enough British airways will charge you more sometimes. when the competition is that much better and the price fairly the same or if not British airways charging you more. Probably most British airways customers are mainly either loyal English people or British citizens or people that just don’t know the far better service you can get for the same price or people that couldn’t find a more suitable flight at the time or it was the cheapest option that day, Sadly that’s just how it is right now.
Totaly agree ...alothough i have never flown with BA ....(could never aford to and still can't PLUS any flying i have done has allway been part of a package holiday so flew with airliles such as tui ect) only time i have flown and paid for just the flights was 3 times to Prague and that was with easy jet lol .....BUT growing up (i was born 1970) BA was considered one of the best and you paid the ticket price for that reputation ..I remember the tv ads for BA in the 80s with the classical music ect! ..seems now BA have done so much cost cutting ( as all airlines have to some point) BUT they are still trying to trade and cash in on that reputation of old when its obv since long gone sadly!
BA lost the lead to Asian airlines nearly 20 years ago. Singapore airport works very well nearly all the time. I stopped flying BA after being insulted by one cabin crew member so much that her colleague came up to me to apologise. If I come to London I fly into Gatwick if I can, because the last few landings in Heathrow were so bad. The service at Heathrow has been deteriorating for about 10 years but accelerated during Covid. I am so happy that I am no longer based in London so I don’t need to deal with Heathrow regularly. Perhaps they should hire the Singaporeans and relearn how to run an airport.
I just paid for 7 business class tickets for my family to Male from London via Qatar airlines, and we were transferred to BA instead as the route is shared. Despite the booking being made 6 months in advance and it involving young children, we were told on arrival at Gatwick that 2 of the tickets had been downgraded. When we questioned the logic for this we were told that the computer had decided which people to downgrade and there was nothing we could do about it. We were handed a piece of paper that said the flight had been overbooked, and all airlines do it. They staff said that they didn’t even work for BA and this was just the way it was. Despite them wearing BA uniforms. They are a complete and utter shower! I will never give BA another penny of my money ever again and I will make it my life’s work to ensure no-one I know or meet ever does either.
@@Someonelowkey OP booked on Qatar, they didn't deliver what they sold, and instead 'outsourced' the flight to BA. To me that's like buying a Mercedes and getting an Opel delivered instead.
@@mcc5901Most airlines make a bit more of a profit by overbooking, relying on the fact that, most likely, a % of passengers will cancel or miss their flight. If I remember correctly, they'll often overbook by about 5%.
BA and Heathrow nearly ruined my vacation last December from these exact issues. The interminable customer service lines (3 hours to resolve ~20 customers is unacceptable), the missed connections due to not having enough busses, extreme delays. And then customer support that is unsympathetic, refusing to help over the phone, only with in person agents who were on break (another hour wait) and who then proceeded to book us on flights with impossibly short connection layovers that we were destined to miss. Glad to see them getting this scrutiny.
Please don't apologise. Everything you said is absolutely true. The only difference between us is that my husband and I had one of the rudest hostess in all our time of flying and this was in business class. Also they apparently ran out of all the food we pre-ordered and we were told rather abruptly to choose something else! They are blatant and totally unapologetic in their incompetence in the care of customers. I always make sure I was polite and pleasant to the cabin crew.
Am reminded of another incident 10+ yrs ago that was reported in my local newspaper, where a traveller flying in economy asked for chicken but the flight had already run out of it, & only had beef, but the traveller is Buddhist & thus doesn't eat beef. She was told to put the beef to one side & eat the rest of her meal. Meanwhile when a nearby Caucasian traveller asked for chicken too, he was offered scallops from the business class menu instead
The sad reality is sometimes you can be as pleasant to some people as you want but unfortunately such may not be reciprocated Many have spoken poorly of British airways customer service
I have the misfortune of living in London and flying BA both long and short haul, and you actually got pretty fortunate. In the last three years they delayed my honeymoon flight by 15 hours and then lost my wife’s bag for 5 days (so lost a days skiing and had to buy her new luggage), have run out of all food on long haul flights, have had broken toilets leading to long queues, I’ve been manhandled by a staff member for walking to the bathroom during light turbulence on a night flight, multiple lost bags and hour long delays. They’ve also removed all non-prebooked food and drinks from some short flights, the customer service is non-existent and management do not give a toss. And that is where the blame site, with BA and IAG’s board. Do none of them flight commercial or something? An absolute litany of excuses about Covid and Heathrow’s fault, no actual ownership and no improvement - if anything the service on long haul flights is actually getting worse, it must be such a toxic work environment when it leads to customers getting treated that badly. The corp needs an entire clean out at the top and get people who know what they are doing and have their priorities correct. Love how they’ve changed the motto from ‘to fly, to serve’ to ‘BA better world, because they’re certainly not serving anyone
I fly BA for work every other week and I'm so glad you made this video! The customer service is appalling and Heathrow is just an anxiety centre. BA should really pay for a benchmarking study so that they understand how they truly rank. How they get away with charging the prices they do is just beyond me. I recently booked tickets to go to Dubai from LHR and have paid £50 more per ticket to fly Emirates and avoid BA.... Awesome channel BTW, keep it up!
The problem is probably not BA but Britain in general. Workers are lazy and are on tea breaks most of the time. Heathrow always was delaying passengers forcing them to arrive 3 hours before their departing connections. Charles de Gaulle has the same problem. You need to prioritize your connections. Britain, NO. France, NO. Unless it's very, very cheap and you have the time. I'm 65 and as far as I can remember it has always been like that.
First time I used Heathrow I literally had an anxiety attack. I wrote too many essays about the whys on this but it is definitely my least favorite airport in the world.
You might want to check out the videos covering the near catastrophic incidents Emirates had over the last couple of years. As the saying goes: not everything that appears to be shiny is gold! And Emirates is just that!
I quit flying anywhere with BA years ago, actively avoid using them now. I don't think I'll ever use them again. I too pay more just to avoid their flights. I fly a lot of long haul, plenty of shorter flights too. They won't miss me or gouging profit from my frequent flights. Their customer's appear to be just a nuisance.
I took BA from San Diego to Heathrow in Nov 2023. I had a connecting flight to Lisbon leaving 3.5 hours after landing. Plenty of time, right? Wrong. We actually landed about 1/2 hour early, but sat on the tarmac for two hours, first waiting for a gate space, then waiting for buses to arrive. By the time I got to the security area, they didn't let me proceed. Apparently, I was supposed to be there at least 1 hour before my departure, but I missed it by 1 minute. I pleaded with BA agents to let me in to no avail. They didn't care about the fact that my lateness was their fault and that my connecting flight was actually delayed by 20 minutes. No apology, no sympathy. They made me to go to the service counter with about 100 people in queue. It took me two hours to talk to the agent for rebooking and arrived in Lisbon via Madrid 7 hours late. BA and Heathrow were the worst I experienced.
I’m glad you made a video about BA. I had a horrible experience with them last spring out of Paris CDG airport. I was treated horribly by the staff who made us miss our flight and the literally refused to give us the correct customer service number for BA. It’s a very long story but we never recieved the number from BA so we went over to American and booked new flights with them and they took really good care of us. When I got home I tried to contact BA for my refund and to file a complaint and they wouldn’t take calls they said it was a different department via email so I emailed several times, just for them to respond once every month. They have horrible customer service and I will never fly with them again.
One of my BA flights got cancelled back in 2020 and I had to request a refund for it. Yeh, I am still waiting for that refund. It's clear BA is struggling financially and doing whatever nonsense they can to hoard money and not act ethically. BA used to be a good airline but now considering the price I pay for the quality I get, I would rather fly ryan air than BA.
@@Jess-ci8re I was truly surprised by how awful they are. I would try contacting your financial institution and see if they can help you get your refund. BA is a joke.
Their staff genuinely don't know their contact numbers, or change the internal phone system and don't bother informing the staff of the new numbers. Last time I had a BA flight cancelled and we were waiting to get sorted, the staff were on the exact same call centre queue as I was on my own phone and I got through first.. and then they had no flights as it was too late with any alternatives already beeing booked, and abandoned us.
I think all the ground staff left in lockdown and never came back. We touched down 30 mins early and got to near the jetway. The lights to guide the plane onto the stand were off. The captain apologised. Some 15 minutes later they got turned on but only by a jetway operator who just happened to be passing - he was going to another gate. It took another 45 minutes to get someone to get the jetway in place. The captain kept us amused by giving us a commentary on his continuing attempts to get it resolved.
They had a massive layoff for ground staff during lockdown. I have family working there, so I know. When flying restarted normally, they couldn't hire and re-train people fast enough. Plus you gotta factor in for Heathrow that it's just overbooked, not enough space for the traffic it gets. If you miss your slot, you have to wait until someone else also misses theirs, so if anything goes wrong, you get massive delays. I try to avoid Heathrow, but will always expect delays if I must go there.
@@fightlikeagirl9025 I think bonista meant airport ground staff employed by the airport and NOT those employed by BA as they have no say in contracts for staff who work for the airport (or i may add 3rd party staff that work for companiies that do some of the jobs such as ground handling ..just looked on Indeed and yes some are BA jobs BUT a lot are jobs that have been tendered out to other companies) so its a mish mash of ground staff from diffrent employers and a lot of those WERE let go during covid and the travel shut down and have since found other jobs so heathrow along wiith other airports are having great difficulty employing experienced staff or having to train them from scratch which takes time !
More like sacked/made redundant. And the airlines were then surprised they didn’t want to come back when they offered them job back- often on lesser terms
I work for a large supermarket warehouse and had loads of former travel industry colleagues join us, due to the extra trade, from restraints closing. Most of them stayed as they said that they earned more, and there was no point in leaving if they did not need to.
I flew BA from Australia to London Heathrow. There was no entertainment on the way, although they said there was an engineer working on it, and it would be repaired shortly. It was not available the whole flight. Forward six weeks to my return flight to Australia. It was the same jet with that same recording explaining the same lie because the entertainment problem was still not fixed. 21 hour flights are a nightmare without entertainment. Never flew with them again. What does it say about their other maintenance practices. Shocking.
The recent Skytrax report on BA expressed much the same concerns. They said that BA short haul is basically now just a budget airline experience, and long haul has a lot of problems and is more consistent with a 3 star airline. A very sad decline, illustrating how damaging thoughtless cost cutting can be.
I literally HAD the same issue on my business class overnight flight from JFK to LHR on Monday 5th June! Only one bus was sent that took the first class passengers and some business class passengers. We waited 30 mins to get off the plane when two more buses were sent. Such a shambolic experience tbh!
I had a terrible experience when British airways cancelled our flight at Christmas from New York to london whilst on board (Xmas time) abandoned me and my family , no customer service , no rebooking . Still trying to get compensation but they completely ignore you . Gone down the legal route now and we were business passengers. This video highlights our same experiences
Same happened to me. Was left stranded at Florida Airport. Thankfully American Airlines helped me find a room and rebook my flight the next day as part of one world. BA left me hanging. I will never forgive them for it.
were u stranded abroad or were u already sitting on the plane (onboard) when they cancelled ur flight? return flight cancelled while u were abroad is terrible either way.
Well that reflects the current British economy well. I just recently flew with a few Asian airlines and Asia seems to be doing very well. Singapore air had great staff, Wifi on board and was super clean- all in ECONOMY. Vietnam Airlines had hot towels, welcome drinks, ADULT sized silverware, amazing meals no matter if it’s supper, dinner, lunch or breakfast (plus bubble tea on board)-all in ECONOMY
There seems to be a general detonation in many companies which now only seem to pursue short term profits. My friend was on a Lufthansa flight where the passengers were kept in the plane on the ground waiting for 3 hours before take off and 2 hours after landing because of a ground crew strike. I recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise where they changed the departure port at the last minute to another port 400 km away thus causing chaos and lost money among the passengers...and Royal Caribbean offered no compensation for their actions. Instead they blamed the passengers. Just terrible and they do not care.
Another great example of BA’s disregard for anything other than profit, is the way in which they argued with Boeing about removing the crew rest bunks on their new 787-10s. They went to additional effort and spent extra money just so they could put in an extra row of economy seats on this aircraft. These -10s are used on 9+ hour flights and I know some crew who say their only option is to try and sleep on the floor or on a jump seat in the galley behind a curtain. Outrageous!
If the crew of a ship are treated so badly for enough time, eventually they will jump ship. It is happening to BA now. Other airlines are offering better treatment and conditions. Sometimes better pay. Either way, who wants to work for an employer who treats you like a dog. Brtish Airways deserves to fail.
I am shocked and surprised that there is no aviation regulation about the resting berths of the flying crew, like truck drivers have. The sleeper berth of a truck has to follow precise measurement requirements in order to qualify.
Dan, listening to your review gave me so many flashbacks, my blood pressure went through the roof. I actually paused the review a few times to take a time out. Heathrow has been my Achilles' heel in terms of my business travels throughout my career. My probably final and last business flight was through LHR enroute to Lisbon in January 2023 and it was thoroughly disgraceful mirroring many of your experiences. Well done on your terrific channel, but sadly I don't think BA and LHR will lose a moments sleep. As for the laid back and charming customer service of BA staff and flight crews, it is tiresome, condescending and no longer acceptable. I've had my fill of being blatantly disregarded by BA and LHR. Never again. Keep up your excellent work.
"the laid back and charming customer service of BA staff and flight crews, it is tiresome, condescending and no longer acceptable." I don't understand why laid back and charming is tiresome....
My experiences of BA staff cabin crew are not so good. Unlike Emirates and Asian crew, who are smart, elegant, courteous and respectful, the BA staff look unkempt, unhygienic, extremely overweight, tattooed, and sweaty due to the exertion involved in looking after the passengers. Very unpleasant experiences tbh.
I hope a lot of people watch this video. It’s incredibly honest and like others have said you do a really good job of advocating for the crew. I had a similar experience with another airline waiting on a bus at JFK late at night and it was awful. This would have likely ended much worse with American passengers, like you noted😅
Oh, a lot of people will watch this video for sure. It´s just too bad that the ones who should see it won´t watch it. That is referring to the head honchos at BA. The ones making all the money, but never have anything to do with passengers. I flew with them a few months ago...and that was the last time.
Similar problem there; JFK was not designed for the traffic volumes it now has to manage. I flew from the new(ish) JFK Terminal 5 last week and it's a horrible overcrowded mess, with no decent food or shops. All the terminals at LHR are far better than that one, at least for economy passengers. It's hard to believe they didn't stop using the old TWA terminal until 2001, and that was designed for (count 'em) a whole six gates for 100-seater aircraft. Although the old terminal is a fabulous bit of early 1960's architecture (now the TWA Hotel, and worth a visit if you're flying through JFK)
Worst travel experience of my life was with BA last spring. It seriously had me considering whether I even want to bother with international travel anymore. I got over that, but now I’ll avoid BA like the plague for the rest of my life.
I think the pushback delays were because of the train cancellations and train strikes. Lots of government organisations (including border force, our train companies have been on strike). These have been ongoing for the last few months and probably explains why there are massive issues at Heathrow as people can't get to work or numbers are down.
Agreed. The freak snow day in early Dec 2022 had the same results because of train delays and staffing issues. I don't know what the solution is, but someone high up in BAA/Heathrow is paid good money to think about and cater for this. The status quo is unacceptable.
This is the general chaos I find in England across the board, I’ve lived her 13 years now and you do get used to it, surprisingly and your tolerance levels become a lot higher
We lived in UK for 10 but coming from Italy this looks still like perfection compared. Not that we don't see the defects but there's much worse in terms of general managing of the nation. BA got loads worse though.
Hi Dan, I’m also a gold member with BA Took a flight to jfk with them a few weeks ago and it was the worst business class experience I’ve ever had. I’m disabled and was treated with disdain and a very poor attitude by one of the members of cabin crew which made me feel really uncomfortable. Other passengers around me were treated much better maybe because they looked like more ‘elite’ passengers than me. They also still haven’t added any tier points for my trip. Heathrow is an embarrassing airport. Leagues behind others in the world. I’m now decided to try and status match with another airline. Great videos by the way Dan.
You needn´t look like an elite traveler in order to be treated well. I hope that you can find another airline that suits your standards. I will not be flying with BA again. Take care.
This is not the only time BA has been disgraceful. Listen to this: Okay so me and my family were going to Heathrow, and then to Scotland and our flight to Heathrow got delayed which made us scared of missing our connection us to Scotland. Being scared, we boarded our flight and just hoped for the best. One hour before our plane would land, we learnt that the connecting flight to Scotland was already boarding, so my dad bought internet on the plane to see if we could get on the next flight to Glasgow. The WiFi did not work so we would just have to try and get on the flight by going to a connection officer in Heathrow.When we landed, we were pleasantly surprised by a BA worker eating for us outside, we thought they were going to give us flight tickets to that next flight, but instead they gave us the tickets to a flight in the next morning. This wasn’t the bad bit, as this normally happens, but what she does next is the bad bit. SHE GIVES US A HOTEL ROOM IN LUETON. For people who don’t know where this is, this a 2 hour drive from Heathrow. THE PLANE TICKETS THAT SHE GAVE SAID OUR BOARDING TIME WAS 6 AM. So in short terms, BA wanted us to take a 2 hour drive to Lurton at 10pm and get there at 12 am. Then sleep for… wait… we would not even be able to sleep BECAUSE WE WOULD HAVE TO LEAVE LEUTIPN AT 12:30 TO GET TO HEATHROW ON TIME! Luckily, my dad knew how far away Lurton was, but just imagine if your a foreigner and didn’t know how far away it was?
Totally agree with the criticisms of BA. I have been a regular flyer with them for many years and have remained loyal due to what I perceived to be a superior level of customer service. About 4 years ago I first started seeing the signs of their decline. This included cancelled, rescheduled flights which I tolerated at first. A 1st class flight to Australia was pleasant but was comparable to business class on other airlines at best. After this the fall in service standards became the norm and it seemed that every trip would have at least one cancellation. Admittedly this would usually be a couple of weeks prior to flying but did mean having to rebook connections due to the changed schedule. It finally cam to a head this year when I was notified on the way to the Munich airport that my flight had been cancelled. I can understand that these things happen but the way BA handled the situation was Appalling. Basically leaving us stranded with no assistance (No presence at the airport and impossible to get through to assistance by phone). Furthermore. The 'next available' flight they booked us on was, in fact a later flight the following day with a flight with available seats before that. It was fortunate that I re-booked on the earlier flight as the later one was also cancelled. On a subsequent flight I had a similar experience with the added bonus of a member of the cabin staff that had no interest in assisting passengers. I am always polite and kind to cabin staff as, they have to deal with some really difficult customers but I do not think it acceptable to basically be ignored for the entire flight. Suffice to say. I am no longer a loyal BA customer and now use competitors unless BA are the only realistic option for my flight needs. I would not be surprised if their drive to make profit at the expense of quality of service will see them go the same way as other failed airlines in the not too distant future.
Flying into heathrow is a nightmare at the moment no matter the airline you fly. The whole country is in disarray at the moment so this doesn't surprise me. Exact same thing happened to me when I came back from Sweden in January.
bloody hell disgraced by a business class flight,99% of people can only WISH for business class on a long haul flight cry ur eyes out about smth v small
@@jensenjohn1640if they’re paying for a service they should be getting that service, it’s the airline’s fault . Maybe you should stop crying about being poor lmao
The last time I traveled through Heathrow, the business class got off and we got to the terminal door and it was locked! Nobody at the airport seemed aware and we tried to open the door only to yelled at by airport security. After waiting about 20 minutes, we finally were able to leave. This is after more passengers in the plane we're all backed up in the hallway. Not to mention my bags were lost for my connection to Iceland. They arrived two days later!
p.s. - prior to the return flight I had complained to BA about the outward flight and had no acknowledgement at all - so a little tip for you all, I filmed all of the things that went wrong on the return flight and when I complained about the return flight (and the outward flight again) letting them know I had filmed they replied within 48 hours and agreed compensation within 72 hours.........
Love your videos. Ive also experienced terrible customer service from BA when there are delays. An 8-hour flight from Heathrow to Newark turned into a two-day nightmare with minimal communication from BA to explain what was going on. That said, I try to remind myself that the fact that we live in a time that a thing such as an airline industry even exists is a miracle.
Awesome, honest and heartfelt video. As an aviator, the Speed bird call sign meant a lot. It was a recognition of a great airline that did things right. Many Atlantic crossings with our Speed bird brethren. It’s really sad that this proud airline has resorted to making excuses during noncritical situations. I hope they refocus on their priorities.
I've found, as you have - that being polite, showing a smile even in the worst situations, and not panicking, you will find someone to help you get through the inconvenience. I've been rebooked with upgrades, I've been shuttled to stay the night free at a hotel and been picked up in time for the morning flight. I've had flight attendants even move me to business class from economy. So, as I find often in life, a positive attitude and empathy for people who work hard and are faced with constant complaints during situations they can't control, I experience luck in my misfortune. ;-)
I wish that were always true, it is sometimes. But my experience is never with BA. STAR ALLIANCE Airlines, EMIRATES, QATAR, SINGAPORE, CATHAY … BUT never one world or sky team
6 years ago I did applied for a bus driver at BA. In the job advert they never mentioned how much is the salary for this position. So I went trough a long process interview. On final interview I found that they pay peanuts and I refused to work for them.
As a loyal BA gold card holder who has been flying with them for decades and former GGL member, I have to agree. I've never had any problems with BA's friendly cabin crew however the onboard product and its offerings is nothing in comparison to their competitors. It's been a shame to see their race to the bottom coming from someone who genuinely loves the airline.
Hello Zac, thanks for your input. Since when has B.A. crew been 'friendly' or even offer 'sanitary' food? Yes, most commenters are 'Gold Card' holders and when was the last time that any BA staff truly 'recognised' that? I recognise 'service' and 'quality' over friendliness any day. I don't fly on an airline for 'friendliness'. I fly for 'safety' and quality, for example. Any supposed 'Gold Card' holder on BA and via LHR must be having their airfare paid for by a company and not 'personally'. Nobody with any 'sanity' would choose to fly BA in any 'premium' class compared to the likes of Singapore/Emirates/Qatar etc.,
🙏 Zac, may I humbly suggest that you spend your hard earned money by switching to flying Singapore Airlines from today! ... Even when you fly Economy you'll still experience great Service, Safety and Security with SIA!! Thus, value for your £££ all the way! 👏😉
Totally disagree . They went through a stage of going down hill , but def on there way up again. Flown cathay this year Singapore . I would say Singapore are by far the best airline but cathay we’re rubbish.
I've always had a very enjoyable experience with decent food and good service. In all my years of flying, multiple business trips annually, I've had just one cancellation. I guess I've been fairly lucky. However, what happened in this video is unacceptable and it's clear from the comments that, unless things change soon, it'll be an airline in trouble.
My most disappointing experience with my BA flight was a 13-14 hour long flight from LHR to HND (and the same experience return). within a 14 hour flight we were only fed twice and if I remember food service started 2 hours after and about 2 hours before the end of the flight. being that there was a 9-10 hour gap between being fed. I was absolutely starving and you bet as soon as I was in Tokyo I found a konbini.
Were you in economy? It has been that way as long as I can remember on long flights on most airlines. Feed you right before landing, and feed you right after take off. Nothing for 10 hours. I don't understand the reason behind feeding people on long flights right before they are landing. This is common.
I had the worse experience in December flying Gatwick to Malaysia with BA. flight was 2pm and I arrived around 10.30 and queued to drop my bags in as I couldn’t check in online (other passengers told me later they couldn’t either). Suddenly at 11am, 5 Check in counters closed leaving just one open so the queue basically didn’t move from 11-12pm. Only one BA staff was around trying to answer questions but we weren’t told any information about why and what was happening. At 12pm they fast tracked all customers for a different flight leaving at 1pm to the front which like I said only 1 counter was open . Chaos ensued- everyone was shouting and everyone surrounded the BA staff- she said that the next shift doesn’t start until 1pm - people were angry and worried about missing their flights as we still hasn’t passed through security. That poor woman cried and I heard her walk away saying ‘ I can’t do this’. Finally at 1pm more staff turned up and opened the counters and it was still chaos , ppl just pushed passed us and swarmed to the counter. Me and my friend ran so hard and fast to get to the gate and made it at 2pm on the dot. Everyone was seated at 3pm due to the delay at the check desk but then they announced that we have to wait for 6 more passengers and at 4pm ,2 still haven’t turned up so they need to off load their bags which took another hour. Then they said we needed to wait for de icing which took another hour. And we finally took off just before 5pm. The flight attendant that looked after out section was so unfriendly and looked fed up. We were guna miss our connecting flight and the flight attendant told us that 230 Out of around 300 passengers have missed their connecting flights at this point. Absolute nightmare as the next connecting flight was in 12;hours. I would just rather pay more for a different airline next time
But hey: they saved *_a few hundred quid_* by not having those five (low-pay) staff members manning the counters for those two hours! I'm sure some incompetent bean-counter thought that was worth costing them many times more in cancellation fees and hundreds of people never wanting to fly with them again...
BA are the only airline that have managed to lose my luggage. Fortunately it was on the home-bound trip, nevertheless even that experience was daunting, since the staff at LHR were far from helpful. Took them five days to return it which was hardly a prompt service.
I work overseas so have flown from and to Gatwick and Heathrow many times over the years, but never had anywhere near the problems in the video or your description. I've never flown BA though.
As a BA Executive club member, I 100% agree with the conclusion of your video. The lack of empathy, organization and resource makes my travels with BA never relazing but always anxious as to what will go wrong. Crew cabin need to stop gossiping as much and be empowered to assist in delay management much more effectively, the backup capacity at Heathrow needs to be upgraded substantially to accomodate the challenges of an airport operating at 99.9%. BA execs should travel undercover and really experience how inconsistent and unprofessional parts of their customer journey truly are.
Well said. Our experience arriving in LHR from Geneva was a story in itself (I even live tweeted for over an hour). Flight had been cancelled twice. The long hold on the ground. The damaged baggage. The refusal to offer compensation for the cancellations. The losing of the suitcase when they came to pick up the damaged baggage. The pitiful offer of compensation for the lost suitcase. Ultimately, they’ve lost me as a customer and I will only fly BA from now as a last choice.
I haven't traveled through Heathrow or with BA in years for these reasons. I see horrible things like this all the time. I only really travel to Houston TX so I take the extra 4 hour drive to Manchester to get a direct flight on Singapore. You've just validated my views so I appreciate your candour
Brilliant move flying to/from Manchester UK -- but be sure to spend a couple of days in Manchester, check out the museums and the restaurants and pubs where you will meet lovely friendly people and great food and beverages.
Last time we flew B.A., we flew overnight in business from Barbados to London in January 2019 and I got a salad, with a side salad - they'd forgotten to put the chicken in the main dish! Then in the morning I didn't get any breakfast because they'd run out! Their weird seat formation meant that when fully extended, if you were in a window seat, you had to step over the person next to you. I wonder what it was like in economy?? Never again! I'd rather change planes somewhere in North America with another carrier if I was going to the Caribbean again than fly direct with them.
You’re absolutely correct! I try to avoid BA and Heathrow for the same reasons. Service is not great and you have to deal with an airport that is over its capacity. What a mess!
You’ve just confirmed my feeling that LHR is a tip, and I’m right to avoid it. I moved from London a few years ago, and being freed from having to use LHR is one of the biggest plus points. We now have our favoured transit airports (home airport is Edinburgh). We’re currently away on hols having used one of your fave airlines, Qatar, though they don’t offer QSuites from there. Even so, the Qatar product (including transit at Doha) is infinitely better than anything available from BA/LHR.
I don’t disagree that BA is a disgrace but let’s not pretend Qatar is all amazing though. I flew with them to Melbourne at Christmas from London. LHR-DOH was a new A380 and excellent but the long 12+ hour flight was on a wreck. I was appauled at how awful it was. It’s often the aircraft, not the airline which makes or breaks the experience.mThat said the BA Business lounge at T3 is an absolute disgrace and should be closed as it does more damage to the brand than good. I’ll always use Quantas or Cathy there if possible.
Your summary towards the end was spot on. For years BA have prioritised profit over not only customers but staff as well. Before COVID was even a factor BA flight and cabin crew were striking over pay disputes. During COVID they laid off a huge amount of the workforce, particularly ground staff, hence the issues arising in the last 18 months. I’m 99% sure the issue was not that there was no bus or pushback tug… there was nobody to operate them. The workforce they laid off have found better jobs with better pay so have not returned. Maybe if they considered how they treated people rather than their spreadsheets they could solve these issues.
Great video Dan. After my experience with BA the last two years, them cancelling flights including a major vacation and for a family wedding, I have cut all my ties with the airline. I was previously a Gold Executive Club member and have even gone through the arduous process of cancelled my membership with them as I never intend to fly BA ever again. As for Heathrow, it is an airport I will try to avoid at all costs. I accidentally forgot how utterly terrible the experience was and travelled through LHR a couple of months ago... My flight was just over an hour but the transit time through the airport and to my car was nearly two hours. Terrible airline, awful airport.
Dan, if you want an experience that will make Heathrow pale by comparison, try Frankfurt. Getting 10 people through security takes 25 minutes, because airport personnel insist on organizing your X-ray tray for you, VERY slowly. This is the nation that went thru Norway in 4 hours! What happened to them?
All the personnel was laid off during COVID - surprisingly they refused to come back to their underpaid jobs dealing with that daily shitshow being unsure of that next plandemic. Can’t blame the guys - currently some tertiary tear dudes are filling in. I must agree that Germany has gone totally down the toilet as well. I try to fly nonstop into DUS when going there, but that can also be a hellhole for same reasons…
I flew BA from Heathrow Airport to Belfast Airport on 1st April, 2020. I believe it was one of the very few flights still operating within the UK, let alone outside the UK. The whole flight experience was fine, there were about 10 of us on the outward journey, and about 5 of us on the inward journey. Belfast airport felt like a haunted house, like an abandoned place, there barely were any people around.
I met with a friend this week who is an airside worker at Heathrow. He told me that the work culture of staff on airside is disgraceful. Last week, due to a plane being delayed, he and a colleague decided to pick up two boxes instead of one to carry to the aircraft to save time and be more efficient. As they were about to reach the aircraft a union official screamed at them to stop what they were doing, return to where they'd come from, drop off one of the items and then go back carrying just the one item. This union official said that they were never to try and do something like that again, and no it wasn't a safety issue it was purely because that's not how they operate! My friend was disgusted, he said that the staff do the absolute minimum at Heathrow. He's only there temporary as he's waiting to get a pilots job.
Did you tell them to tell the Union dude to get stuffed? I work on the trains in Sydney and have had my fair share of problems with the Union here, but I just generally tell them to get stuffed now and they can’t say anything because I’m no longer a member of theirs. Best work decision I’ve made 😂
unions, for all their faults, are why children don't clean chimneys and we have pensions, weekends, sick pay and holidays during which we can travel. BA in general and Willie Walsh in particular went to war with their staff to gut their benefits and change their terms, as the board and shareholders doubled down on their bonuses. Legacy flag carriers have problems with the decent contracts they gave out in the past, but if you treat people like shit, don't be surprised if they don't give a shit. British management writ large.
Really feels like everything is falling apart, not just BA. There's no resilience in any system. One small hiccup and delays/shortages are extreme. Society is highly strung.
I am just amazed you managed to get through on the phone to someone from BA. I spent weeks trying to phone BA after I needed to amend something on a flight of mine from Edinburgh to London and I failed to get through every single time. I couldn't work out a way to talk to someone over the phone no matter how many numbers I tried to call. Eventually I make the decision to go to Edinburgh airport (which is 1h 30m away from where I live) to try and talk to them in person and I did eventually get it sorted that way. But a real inconvenience to have to use up my entire Sunday to go on a 3h round trip to fix a simple booking detail with my flight. I have solidly refused to fly BA since.
Well done Dan. Unfortunately your story is not a rare one. We are flying through LHR on BA in a couple of weeks. I purposely booked a 4 hour connection knowing all to well what a “disgrace “ BA and LHR can be. Thanks for a great and honest review.
Great video, I went through terminal 3 during the summer. Security line was 3 hours and the terminal is a sweatbox- thing i've learned is to give yourself massive buffer time between flights or even stay overnight to break it up.
Oh dear I didn't want to hear that as I'm flying Emirates into Terminal 3 in April from Saigon. Previous flights have been to Birmingham but that is an extra 350 pounds so decided to give Heathrow a go.
I had a really bad trip with BA a few weeks ago from Chicago (ORD to London (LHR) booked at business class. The plane arrived too late in Chicago so my night flight was postponed and American Airlines gave me a night at the Hyatt hotel. Next morning i came back to the lounge and they gave me a nice breakfast because that was not included at the hotel. The start at Chicago was delayed by nearly 1 hour due to technical issues at the plane. We arrived too late for my next connection because 10pm London Heathrow shuts down operation. There was no BA member to give us a hotel etc. Security people gathered all passengers and forced us to "sleep" at a gate. next morning i talked to the BA service at the counter and when i was asking why nobody was there the evening before I was threatened to be arrested by the security for being offensive - I was totally calm at this moment. I did this flight several times during the last years because my employer booked it. So our travel agency took care and refunds from BA took over 2 months. The BA people at the cabin were super friendly but besides that BA is a total mess and LHR is now one of the worst airports i have seen all over Europe.
Hi Dan, having used BA regally for many years I agree with some of your responses, I agree the staff have always been great but people higher up are not interested in passengers, just profit. As a british customer, sadly its back to Emirates for me.
Apparently BA has been cancelling flights all over the shop recently - we got a call last week to let us know they had cancelled our flights from Heathrow to Japan and back for March! Fortunately we could be rebooked for almost the same time with JAL (and that seems entirely for the best, especially after watching this video!) but what a mess :(
We flew Mexico City to LHR a few months ago. The boarding process by the BA staff at Mexico City was utterly chaotic. We had checked in online and already had our boarding passes. On arrival at the gate, there was complete chaos. Boarding gate staff read out an incredibly long list of people to come to the counter. It turned out they did not accept the online boarding passes on our phones so we all had to queue to get a paper one. Most of those in the queue were First and Club passengers. After 30 minutes or so with a very disorganized queueing process we finally managed to get our paper boarding passes, by which time most Economy passengers had already boarded. Given there is a flight from MEX to LHR every day surely they should not have this kind of chaos? The food and service on board was great. We were in transit to Lisbon at Heathrow but because of the delays at MEX we missed our connection. BA then transferred our flight to a TAP flight and lost our bags in the transfer. We finally got our bags two days later with some substantial damage to one. We tried to claim the damage from BA but they blamed the damage on TAP and washed their hands of it. We just gave up!
I don't know if this is still available, but I used to fly Virgin upper class out of Heathrow. They would pick me up at my hotel and drive me to a private entrance where they would check my bag, check my passport and escort me to the lounge. Brilliant.
My husband and I travel to Germany a few times a year, and we never connect through Heathrow. It's always been a nightmare, we just fly direct from the US to Frankfurt. We stopped using BA years ago.
Flew into Heathrow with British Airways in September for the first time for a short visit with my school and I completely understand their incompetence. Firstly we had a very similar bus issue, and when the bus arrived at the terminal the door was locked, and nobody knew how to open it. Somehow nobody knew how to open the main entrance into the terminal for bus passengers! We were delayed only an hour and a half maybe overall so I do consider myself lucky enough, thankfully we didn’t miss anything important only a tour of London scheduled for my tour group. The surprising thing is just how unorganised and slow they are at the literal home of British Airways
@@howardneil8164 I don’t really care who is working for them British or foreign, what matters is that British Airways has major operating issues in general. No airline should have that little control over a situation, I even managed to have a way better flights experience with Ryanair operations wise recently, we left slightly early on both trips! EasyJet were decent when I flew with them last year as well. Crazy that budget airlines are doing a better job at times, at least in my few experiences
@@howardneil8164 That's definitely not the problem. Lufthansa, Ryanair and KLM also have a lot of foreign staff and they all have very smooth operations.
Heathrow is a nightmare!! My husband and I returned to the UK from LAX last year and everyone's bags were delayed for over FOUR HOURS! Apparently there was some sort of shortage in workers that day and hundreds of flights had delayed/lost baggage, but it was a VERY negative experience to say the least.
I live in the UK and have to deal with Heathrow quite regularly. Many years ago I had exactly the 29 minutes before scheduled departure experience you describe. I was told to go to the tickets counter to rebook my flight. I went, there was no queue, rebooked it within minutes for the next flight in two hours and went through security. I cleared security 15 minutes before the scheduled time of my original flight. I went to the gate of my original flight and saw that boarding had just commenced. I showed my printed paper original boarding pass and asked to board. I was refused. I argued but they were adamant, regardless of the fact that the flight was both a bit late and not fully booked. Obviously, I haven’t been flying BA almost at all since. I prefer Lufthansa and Star Alliance. I only use BA when I have to go to Spain, as they have the monopoly by owning Iberia. For the few times that I am forced to use them, they still astonish me. How can they manage, even though they have full and exclusive use of Terminal 5, probably one of the best terminals in the world and the biggest at Heathrow, to still operate some flights from Terminal 3? Just beats any logic…
Wondering if there were any security laws that prevent you from boarding your flight, which I guess may not always been logically obvious e.g. some lounge hoppers departing on Qantas flights from T1 @ Changi Airport were reportedly banned by airport security from taking the shuttle bus to T4, where they had wanted to visit the lounge of fellow OneWorld airline Cathay Pacific, as their flight wasn't departing from T4 (where security is done before the lounge (& on shuttle buses going to it), unlike in T1 where security is done at the aircraft's gate)
@@lzh4950 I can sort of guess how this kind of security arrangements came about. Lockerbie, if anyone can remember it, was due to someone checking in a bomb then not showing up for his supposed flight, so I can see why sudden unscheduled passengers would make them antsy but I suspect the newer generation of workers would not have known of the "why"s now that the particular incident was close to 4 decades in the past.
The issue is pure greed on the part of LHR and BA. They aren't willing to pay the wages necessary to bring back the ground crew and luggage crew they fired during the covid lockdown. They still think they can pay some shite non-livable amount of salary same as they did prior to COVID and inflation and it obviously isn't working. Same thing happened in amsterdam, which led to a horrible post-covid first summer and complete luggage meltdown with over 50000 pieces of luggage lost or so heavily delayed the people whose luggage it was never got it back. The airport fixed it by providing a 'temporary' wage increase which in fact was just a living wage at this point because the netherlands are incredibly expensive to live in nowadays. Then the airport got rid of the temporary wage increase, everybody quit, and the shit show was back on until the government directly intervened and the CEO was fired. The British government would never dare to interfere or put pressure on businesses even if the situation is embarassing for the country and bad for workers because business leaders are saints in British politics whose decisions can never be questioned. Its disgusting.
I have flown BA only once in the last year (no other options) Heathrow - Milan route. The plane picking us up was 5 hours late due to being delayed leaving Heathrow earlier that day. When we eventually boarded, it was the last flight and we were told as we sat on the tarmac for another hour that the flight may not be allowed to land at Heathrow as there was no ground staff to receive the aircraft, and we may be diverted to stanstead. Amazing my we made it to Heathrow at about 1:15am when we should have arrived at about 8pm. Never had a smooth experience with BA since the late 1990’s
I fully agree with what Dan said. I fly at least once a month from Heathrow and it is most of time terminal 5 with BA. The last 3 flights has been excatly as described. I have started to look for alternatives to both BA an Heathrow, it's too exhausting to have it like this.
Virgin Atlantic is a fine option. Although recently I have seen their prices go up tremendously on the LAX/Heathrow route. Maybe VA is seeing a surge of customers running away from BA.
I so wished I have watched this video before making my decision to fly BA. My family and I had total 4 trips with BA during our Europe trip and all had insane issues. They have a habit of cancelling extremely last minute where some of my family got their flights cancelled without notification (u realise until u start looking for the gates), the rebooked flights get cancelled again and at the absolute last minute, they will notify u that they are not flying at all to the destination for the day. On top of that they lost their luggage (Manchester to London). Those flying through Frankfurt waited 3 hrs for their luggages after delays (literally whole day wasted). We then have a flight to Milan a couple of days later (where they tried to bump me off my fully paid Biz class seats with a one world sapphire status -- ok I know I'm not emerald but still!) and bumped my family members off the flight entirely and I only managed to save everyone after much protest, as we're travelling with elderlies and had connections the next day. The absolute nightmare was Milan back to London where they only told us 9 hrs before departure they are cancelling all Milan flights and we had a long connection flight back to Asia. The hotline was useless as it was a voice recording "we have too many requests right now and cannot take ur call, bye!" and then hung up. They are absolutely prepared to abandon their passengers last min and we had to find our own way to London last min. Luckily we were able to last min got Lufthansa tickets transiting through Frankfurt that added so much complication to the journey and left has absolutely no time to eat throughout the day, and needless to say the replacement tickets was insanely expensive coz it was so last minute. I get that airline travels are rarely smooth but wouldn't it hurt to let people know a bit more in advance? We got cancelled by AirFrance as well but they let u know 48 hrs in advance, automatically rebooked us to the next flight, with options online to choose another flight if we would like to. It was seriously fine, we just rearrange the water taxi and got to enjoy a bit more of Venice. BA just completely disregard people's time, schedule, and wellbeing. Oh and I forgot, the same people who lost their bags in Manchester have their bags lost again on their trip back to Asia, seriously what is happening
After hearing the delays you got at heathrow. I honestly think was it due to the strikes that affected the lack staff working at the airport. But that’s just my guess.
BA only has BA staff working on their planes. A lot of BA staff member had worked for them for years and in so doing amassed a good waged and good length of service packages . So what did BA do when the pandemic hit they laid off all its experience staff, instead of putting them on furlough. Don't forget the British government guarantee 80% of the wages due to the pandemic for all UK workers, so it would have cost BA nothing to keep its experience staff. Then when the pandemic finished BA tried to get it experience staff back. On less wages and loss on length of service, which basically means they had to start from the bottom again and surprise surprise the experience staff clearly gave BA the middle finger. Really if you gave BA 5,10,15,20,25,30 years and more of service would you go back.
@@markusx22 No, it's the strikes on public transport which people are talking about, meaning people couldn't get to work or were late if travelling by car.
That's why I always fly direct and spend more money on that rather than on the class. Takes out all this layover stress. Unless there is absolutely no direct connection and then I schedule a longer layover to reduce the risk of having to run around in a hurry or missing the connecting flight.
Current BA Gold member here. Decided recently to abandon them in favour of SkyTeam. Have been treated shockingly in LHR T5 - being made to wait (with all the other Group 1 Passengers) - standing at the automatic gates for over an hour with no explanation, no apologies and a terrible attitude. In my several BA Flights since I think I've just realised that the boarding, flying and deplaning experience are in fact just terrible, and the actual product that they provide is super basic. I have been making excuses for them because I'm a Gold Member, and therefore the pre-flight experience at Heathrow is excellent - but the actual service and punctuality is seriously sub-par, and their partner airlines - AA in particular are sometimes even worse. So I'm no longer making the effort to fly BA as I used to in order to get my tier points - and am going full throttle for the SkyTeam alliance to see how they compare. But yeah. Bye BA!
A travel goal I have this year is to fly business class internationally at least once this year, and have to say, while not solely because of you, but in large part thanks to you, I already know I'm not wasting my money or miles or points on a BA business class flight.
I fly business with BA from LHR to SJC 4-5 times a year and this video is extremely accurate. I once waited 6 hours(!) for a gate after landing at LHR on a red eye with my wife who was 8 months pregnant. Then we got sent to a bus gate and waited another 90 mins for buses (during which time we were told they couldn’t find drivers). It is so blatantly obvious that management has absolutely no regard for customers or staff. The absolute worst kinds of unimaginative, spreadsheet-oriented MBAs who know nothing of innovation and think being competitive means nickel and diming every last detail. Really a stain on our national reputation, in many ways a fantastic fit for the era of Liz Truss , where the most unremarkable people are somehow in positions of responsibility. We need a cultural reset in Britain and need to start valuing excellence. BA needs to hit rock bottom and soon.
_We need a cultural reset in Britain and need to start valuing excellence._ I agree. Let's introduce Communism into the UK to replace capitalism. Let's bring back Arthur Scargill to the unions, too.
As I mention in my post above British airports have monetised every inch of their scruffy dirty shopping malls with runways outside. Try driving to Edinburgh airport if you want to experience an approach that's worse than any other in Europe.
@@Fedora_JP If you really believe that, I suggest you go to South Africa, Russia or China, and experience life there, then come back to the UK, and tell me that we're cronyism. I'm not going to lie and saying that there is no cronyism in the UK, but, it's on a small scale compared to the rest of the world, and well within European norms. If you ask the people from those countries that are living in the UK, they will tell you that the system works, and our politicians are saints compared to theirs.
My wife is a flight attendant for Finnair. BA is leasing some of Finnair's A321 and using Finnair's crew. They go to Heathrow for 5 days and fly from there. She was surprised how rushed everything is and the constant delays on everything. This also stresses the already thin crew to the max. Food just in general did not seem of good quality. Drink variety and less of ready made drink seemed good in business. For flagship carrier surprising emphasis put on selling stuff in flight. She also thought it was hilarious that BA has warnings on their app for titles, like Lord. So you need to use the titles constantly when talking. That to her and I would imagine anybody in the Nordics seemed pretty silly and something from 100 years ago.
Hi Dan. Me and my husband paid nearly a grand for business class from Gatwick to Malaga to sit in a normal cramped seat. The row behind us was economy... same seats. OK we got breakfast but I can say certainly not worth it.
Dan, couldn’t agree more. My girlfriends flight from LHR to Toronto was overbooked this summer (by 37 seats!). She was going to a funeral and after being bumped but the BA customer service experience was appalling
I honestly did not think it could get this bad.. I saw your video just before flying with BA from Brussels to Australia and back, I was hopeful that my expierence would be better but on the contrary: - the flight from Brussels to London got cancelled 15 minutes before the planned departure time - they rebooked me and lost my luggage at LHR, it took 6 days for them to recover it and to ship it to my final destination (after daily follow up from my side) - on the flight back home a similar thing happened, the connecting flight from LHR to BRU got cancelled together with many many others - it did not really make any difference since I would have missed my flight anyway because of similar issues you faced at LHR (no busses, extra waiting time, ...) Some parts of my journey were carried out by Qantas and Cathay Pacific, the contrast between them and BA was very obvious on all aspects of flying. I feel bad for the people working at LHR and BA since they can only do their best but something is definately wrong, big time... I normally never respond to video's but this time the resamblence to your expierence was so high I felt I needed to mention it, also for other travellers. Where possible I will avoid using BA and definately use other stopovers then LHR... Now the fun part of taking this up with customer service and the "great online applications" they have starts.
Think I must be lucky. Never had issues and fly a lot . You sure cannot Ryanair with any other airline. They are so bad it’s not funny . If you want to fly like cattle then yes book budget Ryanair
Very good point about the call center: if you don’t get what you want from one agent try call again later and see if you get another. This has happened to me several times when having problems with bookings. Seems like some agents just can’t be bothered to help, or have just been yelled at by another caller and are not in the mood to help. Really is a case of who you get on the end of the line, its worth multiple attempts, especially with airline tickets that have such gray areas in booking rules and regulations
Thank you so much for this video!! I am still waiting on my lost luggage claim with British Airways and I’m talking against a wall since a year… it helps a lot to know that I’m not alone with my bad experience on BA - even though I don’t want this to happen anyone else! Stay safe
You are absolutely correct. We flew into Heathrow with BA from JFK in February. On the flight there they left my luggage in NY and was supposed to be on the next flight to london, it took 2 days to arrive. When leaving London we were delayed at Heathrow for over 2 hours with no real explanation.
I have had similar. 90 minutes waiting for a airbridge after a flight bsck from China. Flights redirected from Heathrow to Gatwick then replacement bus "lost". Flight from Germany cancelled and available flight 2 days later. Now I avoid Heathrow and BA.
This is a familiar story of late at LHR. I've had 2 nightmare scenarios there in the last couple of months. The real truth, is that there are severe staffing issues at BA & LHR.
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There are approximately 200 more staff that have to go through home office clearance to work at peak hours btw. Gatwick is in a better state these days.
Hi Dan know exactly what you mean. I was on the same flight from Doha as you and could not believe the absolute disgraceful episode after landing. It was a nightmare of ridiculous errors and BA should have taken this up with airport management. Great video all the best Patrick
Sounds to me like you need a proper job - self funded what on earth do you do apart from whinge to get attention to your youtube antics? You don't seem to travel cattle class too much.
Do us a favour and stop flying BA, then you won’t need to criticise
Thing is Dan what you do is spot on. And it will save people from spending thousands on below par service. You make excellent content and were most reviewers maybe are bit too political you say it as it is and for that you get 10/10 from me. Try Aer Lingus I am from Ireland and would be curious to see what you think. Take care pal.
Dan, I work for BA. We’ve always been hopeless at handling disruption. Combine that with a little bit of bad weather and the permanent staff shortages and the operation falls to pieces. The company won’t spend money in building resilience into the system and instead chases profits instead of a reliable schedule.
Booming British Economy right according to Conservative MPs
This video issues seem more about the airport then the airline
@@n3wt He seems to be specifically speaking about Terminal 5 which is more or less run by BA.
Are they still recommending abandonded churches as good accomodation for single females with no where to go once a flight is delayed over 6 hours? Just curious here.
@@index7989 Yeah I’d hardly call it booming cause we still haven’t gone back to pre pandemic levels. 😂 Jeremy Hunt is a liar
As retired cabin crew, i can tell you that when Lord King, and Lord Marshall retired, the Company collapsed. Most staff as you found out are replaced with cheap temp staff. Management treated all workers with total contempt and as you can see, the effect has rubbed off. Until BA gets a management that inspires and uplifts their workers nothing will change.
Totally agree, Lord King and Colin Marshall who were in charge when I started with BA in 1988 would be spinning in their graves! I think the rot set in when Willie Walsh took over, and he's continued to damage everything he's been involved with since. As for the pandemic and 'fire and rehire' that's why you encountered the young cabin crew without much experience. I used to be so proud to work for BA, now I'm just ashamed and embarrassed.
I've known BA to be crappy since times immemorial. When I was moving to US, only BA flight required visa for UK and was substantially more expensive than KLM and Lufthansa - the consequence of airport and airline (dis)organization. Essentially they don't give a damn, they know you won't fly again any time soon. The term "returning customer" is not in their dictionary 😃 At least now you know why you don't see reviews of BA flights 😇 The word gets around quite fast.
BTW try to do something international via Amsterdam - the airport is quite magical inside - at least the one I remember.
Hands-on management in the UK is a thing of the past. All the problems stem from the poor standard of management which is now endemic in the UK.
Hi Dan! I am a US based mainline flight attendant and I want to thank you for highlighting the verbal abuse directed at the BA crew and expressing empathy for them during the insane ground time at LHR. I absolutely love my career and the opportunity to offer professional and caring service to our passengers but I know what it is like to be berated because of operational delays beyond the crew's control. It means a lot that you emphasized these things despite the frustrating ground time. Also, I am a big fan of both this channel as well as your adventures with Oskar!
Hey 👋 I don’t work on a plane but I do work in customer service and I respect you
Ok 👍
Daniel, not to say I don’t believe you, but I find it difficult to believe paxs will blame crew members especially when it’s explained that it’s an operational delay out of their control. I’m a gate agent and I feel like airport customer service agents always get much worse treatment than FAs. Not to say it doesn’t happen but that’s generally my experience, and I’m curious to hear about certain situations when you guys took flak.
Edit: there--> their*
I work in a Supermarket, and I fully understand you. Big hugs to you! 🤗
@@knotationmusic As retired BA cabin crew I can assure you that this abuse happens. Perhaps not on such a large scale as in this report, but individually, certainly.
The thing with BA but also many other companies/institutions in the UK is that when things go well, it’s all perfectly smooth and easy, but if something goes wrong the whole system crumbles down. They are not very flexible and adaptable.
I’m Crew, and we’re all embarrassed by the LHR ground service. No buses, wheelchair support non-existent etc. We get tons of abuse about it & we’re just as embarrassed & angry about it too as we have just finished a busy flight/shift & these things delay us getting home or being commuters getting our flights home.
Sadly the -4 temperatures meant planes waiting to be de-iced causing the gates being used until slots become available. Delays mean build up of more ice, it’s a never ending problem.
I will agree that BA crew in the main are excellent but LHR ground staff are truly bad (in the main). I have never seen a more reactionary/unreasonable and lazy bunch of 'workers' in my life. They are a national embarrassment.
I speaking to Mum last night, wanting to fly to New Zealand to see my sister, she specifically requested to not fly via LHR (or LGW) because of ground staff issues with wheelchairs.
British Airways is the British Leyland of the sky. The management have lost touch with reality and it is selling a poor product. People are voting with their wallets.
They fired too many groundstaff during the pandemic, and now can't get them back.
Had a terrible time at LHW . No wheelchair turned up for me . Finally got one last minuet nearly missing my connection. Pushed into the wheelchair and ran through the airport. My hand luggage with all my medicines was left after me. No medication during my stay in NY.and had to pay 120 pounds to get it back w months later
I’m so sorry that crew have to bear the brunt of irate passengers, most of whom could be a damn sight more understanding. But for many, it’s not just inconvenient but genuinely upsetting and even distressing. Imagine being disabled or in chronic pain or managing small children or all 3 while being messed around so badly, all while spending money that may have taken years to save up. The bosses should be ashamed.
I used to be an onboard manager with BA. Its been like this for YEARS! This certainly isn't a one off. The company couldn't care less about their passengers. They'd happily send an aircraft out with not enough food, no food at all, broken toilets that you can't even flush, no IFE at all, premium cabin seats that don't even go into a flat bed. The list goes on. The ground handling is like this practically on a daily basis. Once they have your money, they couldn't care less. The poor cabin crew are treated like dirt. Ohh how the mighty have fallen. BA was amazing back in the day but that ship has long sailed. Its a national embarrassment these days.
All the Anglo Saxon airlines are going down the same route. All the North American airlines are terrible and Qantas has become so bad the CEO just resigned. I think they're grappling with staff shortages and fierce competition from Asian Carriers who are giving a far better product experience and competitive prices.
@@deezeed2817 Only Asians should operate airlines and airports. Anglo Saxons should be relegated to flying cargo.
Were you a CSD? "C"nt that Stands next to the Door" as the joke went :-)
the media need to do an investigation, change the CEO
Ah, it is just like I said, the British are not British anymore... No offence, but I'm British and emmigrated to Canada, a similar natured country...but this past quarter of a century it too has slowly gone downhill. Immigrants are moving here in the thousands and I cant understand their language or ways. Not many can.
This is how I see things:- I would never emmigrate to a country that I could not speak the language or knew their culture, for me to fit in. I would never dream of insisting people born and raised here behaved the same as myself, and immigrant. Its their country.. Heres hoping the i's have been dotted to my statement. I wish everyone the very best, and pray things get better, for all.
Hi Dan, I would say its lack of staff thats the problem, not equipment. British Airways are on a massive recruitment drive at the moment. They got rid of to many people during covid, its their own fault 100%
Australian frequent flyers who were abused by Qantas should give you a thumb up as well.
As did most all Carriers. Thankfully I was one of them. Happily Retired. TY Covid for the pkg 😁
Yep. My partner had worked there for 16 years and they used Covid as an excuse to rip up her contract, cut her pay, cut her allowances and make her work long haul, despite the fact she chose to stop working long haul 12 years ago when she became a mother. She realised she would be far worse off financially than she was 10 years earlier, so took the redundancy offered. Just like thousands of other long term cabin and ground crew who BA screwed over. They just wanted to get rid of them so they could pay recruit younger people and pay them far less. Staff turnover used to be unheard of at BA. Now it’s ridiculously high.
Busses at Heathrow are the dodgiest things in the world. The busses at Heathrow are always delayed.
Brexit means that we have no one to drive the buses or push back trucks…..This is what the idiots voted for and so the county will be forced to suffer the consequences. Those who voted for Brexit have brought the country down to the their own level , which is the lowest common denominator
Totally agree - I was flying with heathrow business a few months back and the flight was delayed. Few hours after sitting at the gate, airport security came and told us the airport is closing our flight must have been cancelled and all BA staff had went home! Families stranded, kids sleeping on floor etc. My business seat was replaced with an economy seat the next day, had to sort hotel etc myself, no refreshment or vouchers etc. They just replied after three months saying they will pay the hotel and nothing else (no compensation for downgrade, no cancellation compensation as apparently there were thunderstorms in heathrow (blazing sunshine that day!).
Ironically I had a delay with easyjet a week after that, and they arranged a great hotel stay for everyone, transport, room service meal covered, and all prepaid including taxis, and compensation paid within 2 weeks. I think it's time to accept BA is just a budget airline these days (and not a very good one), not to mention their app and tech solutions are very poor.
I totally agree with you about the other stuff, but not the app. It isn’t confusing in my opinion, and is pretty easy compared to other airlines to use, but that doesn’t really make up for the bad experience.
This is a revelation to me. I have had a few bad experiences flying over the years - but nothing compared to this. I've always found BA's pricing prohibitive compared to other airlines. I simply cannot understand the logic behind people paying for a business class ticket and then being forcebly dumped to an economy class without any consequence for the airline. How are they able to do this legally? It is a disgrace that they can get away with this practice. They will reap the whirlwind eventually though, when a foreign national picks up BA for a song.
Idiots.
This is what happens when the system is collapsing. These companies treat their lower level employees like dirt do no one wants to work for this evil system anymore. We’re done.
Swissport💀?
Handling disruptions so poorly? *jetblue has entered the chat*
@@benconnolly4258 according to my friend they pay minimun wage.
@@Xandro_B20 not quite but very close to it, in the London area, roles such as baggage handlers are paid £10.45 which is not minimum wage but ridiculous, you can earn more in a low level retail job
Dnata?
Great insight, it has been chaos at LHR. The problem is a chronic shortage of staff in all roles across the airport. Thousands of staff were made redundant during the pandemic and then asked to return on lower pay, many (rightly) refused causing huge operational delays
Brexit also plays a part in the chaos I think 😢
Yeah with one million people leaving the country all companies are fishing in a much smaller pond for labour. A lot of airport workers went to Amazon
@@jillwallace1319 it plays none whatsoever. The comment above demonstrates exactly the reason.
Christ are people still blaming Brexit when every airport in Europe is the same!!? Get your heads out of your a***s and make a success of it!
Yeah but we TOOK BACK CONTROL, didn't we! Not.
@@jillwallace1319 Only because they cannot dip into an endless supply of suckers wishing to work for worse and worse conditions you cannot realistically support a family on in that area of the country in an eternal race to the bottom.
They could have solved this by not firing staff en-masse or they can pay a proper wage.
The whole experience with BA is a nightmare and Heathrow in general. In November I waited for 2 hours for my luggage to come off my BA flight and arrive at the carousel. Passengers were tired after a 12 hour flight and this was really a disgrace.
wow same! except that mine was in october. maybe they schedule this delay like one a week just for laughs.
You have my sympathy. We've lost connecting flights from Heathrow even when arriving 2 hours before departure. Brexit is just another reason to avoid Britain's inefficient managers and lazy workers.
Same experience for me, except after 2 hours of waiting, I came to discover my baggage was being held at transit holdings instead of delivering it to me for a layover. When asked for it, they said the area is closed and I wouldn't have access to my luggage until my final destination. No one wanted to help me but so many staff were literally standing around chatting with each other.
My experience was slightly different in that there was nobody to actually LOAD the passengers luggage
I've only ever flown BA since I was born, so i thought it was normal to wait a long time for bags. I flew Norwegian last week and my bags were right there, on the outbound and return flight, barely five minutes after I got off the plane.
I always feel embarrassed for the actions of some people towards flight crew members when they have no control of the flight (weather related, logistic issues…etc)
Never blamecthe workers blame the management
@@bdoo60 don't blame anyone, just stop getting bothered over stuff that isn't causing you physical pain
This happened to me too about a week ago- where the “system” at LHR “blocked” me and did not allow me to proceed on to my connecting flight because I was “too late,” telling me I needed to go to the customer service desk instead. I lucked out and a BA “supervisor” randomly showed up and she told the security attendant to let me through. I made my next flight- which was an American Airlines codeshare flight to LAX that left exactly on-time. My entire travel experience from LA to Dublin via LHR, both outbound and returning, was the worst I have ever experienced all because of British Airways and the situation at Heathrow. As a customer who flies out of LAX and therefore has many other options, this experience alone made me decide to never fly BA again, even if their cost, routing, flight-time, etc. was better than the alternative.
I totally agree with you Dan. I'm English and I remember in the not too distant past when BA was one of the best airlines in the world. Not so anymore. Basically, BA just don't give a shit and they wonder why they are losing business to other airlines, right, left and centre. I'm afraid the Asian and Arab airlines took over airline business years ago and continue to make a good job of it.
That’s because the service and hospitality and seats, food and technology etc is far more superior on these gulf Arab airlines such as emirates and qatar airways and etihad to what you would get on British airways and it’s usually the same price for a ticket to the same destination funny enough British airways will charge you more sometimes. when the competition is that much better and the price fairly the same or if not British airways charging you more. Probably most British airways customers are mainly either loyal English people or British citizens or people that just don’t know the far better service you can get for the same price or people that couldn’t find a more suitable flight at the time or it was the cheapest option that day, Sadly that’s just how it is right now.
Totaly agree ...alothough i have never flown with BA ....(could never aford to and still can't PLUS any flying i have done has allway been part of a package holiday so flew with airliles such as tui ect) only time i have flown and paid for just the flights was 3 times to Prague and that was with easy jet lol .....BUT growing up (i was born 1970) BA was considered one of the best and you paid the ticket price for that reputation ..I remember the tv ads for BA in the 80s with the classical music ect! ..seems now BA have done so much cost cutting ( as all airlines have to some point) BUT they are still trying to trade and cash in on that reputation of old when its obv since long gone sadly!
I blame that goddamn bastard sir Freddie Laker!!!
Maybe, maybe, maybe because they put their customers first, hmmm, what a strange thought that is...
BA lost the lead to Asian airlines nearly 20 years ago. Singapore airport works very well nearly all the time. I stopped flying BA after being insulted by one cabin crew member so much that her colleague came up to me to apologise. If I come to London I fly into Gatwick if I can, because the last few landings in Heathrow were so bad. The service at Heathrow has been deteriorating for about 10 years but accelerated during Covid. I am so happy that I am no longer based in London so I don’t need to deal with Heathrow regularly. Perhaps they should hire the Singaporeans and relearn how to run an airport.
I just paid for 7 business class tickets for my family to Male from London via Qatar airlines, and we were transferred to BA instead as the route is shared. Despite the booking being made 6 months in advance and it involving young children, we were told on arrival at Gatwick that 2 of the tickets had been downgraded. When we questioned the logic for this we were told that the computer had decided which people to downgrade and there was nothing we could do about it. We were handed a piece of paper that said the flight had been overbooked, and all airlines do it. They staff said that they didn’t even work for BA and this was just the way it was. Despite them wearing BA uniforms. They are a complete and utter shower! I will never give BA another penny of my money ever again and I will make it my life’s work to ensure no-one I know or meet ever does either.
I wouldn't give Qatar my money anymore either if I was you.. as Dan said, what a disgrace.
@@pa_alia What's Qatar airways got to do with this?
@@Someonelowkey OP booked on Qatar, they didn't deliver what they sold, and instead 'outsourced' the flight to BA.
To me that's like buying a Mercedes and getting an Opel delivered instead.
Genuinely curious, what do you do for a living? 7 business class tickets on that route is like $20,000
@@mcc5901Most airlines make a bit more of a profit by overbooking, relying on the fact that, most likely, a % of passengers will cancel or miss their flight. If I remember correctly, they'll often overbook by about 5%.
BA and Heathrow nearly ruined my vacation last December from these exact issues. The interminable customer service lines (3 hours to resolve ~20 customers is unacceptable), the missed connections due to not having enough busses, extreme delays. And then customer support that is unsympathetic, refusing to help over the phone, only with in person agents who were on break (another hour wait) and who then proceeded to book us on flights with impossibly short connection layovers that we were destined to miss. Glad to see them getting this scrutiny.
Please don't apologise. Everything you said is absolutely true. The only difference between us is that my husband and I had one of the rudest hostess in all our time of flying and this was in business class. Also they apparently ran out of all the food we pre-ordered and we were told rather abruptly to choose something else! They are blatant and totally unapologetic in their incompetence in the care of customers. I always make sure I was polite and pleasant to the cabin crew.
Am reminded of another incident 10+ yrs ago that was reported in my local newspaper, where a traveller flying in economy asked for chicken but the flight had already run out of it, & only had beef, but the traveller is Buddhist & thus doesn't eat beef. She was told to put the beef to one side & eat the rest of her meal. Meanwhile when a nearby Caucasian traveller asked for chicken too, he was offered scallops from the business class menu instead
The sad reality is sometimes you can be as pleasant to some people as you want but unfortunately such may not be reciprocated Many have spoken poorly of British airways customer service
Forgot to add that this was on a different airline though
@@lzh4950 what the fuck then are u talking about
I have the misfortune of living in London and flying BA both long and short haul, and you actually got pretty fortunate. In the last three years they delayed my honeymoon flight by 15 hours and then lost my wife’s bag for 5 days (so lost a days skiing and had to buy her new luggage), have run out of all food on long haul flights, have had broken toilets leading to long queues, I’ve been manhandled by a staff member for walking to the bathroom during light turbulence on a night flight, multiple lost bags and hour long delays. They’ve also removed all non-prebooked food and drinks from some short flights, the customer service is non-existent and management do not give a toss. And that is where the blame site, with BA and IAG’s board. Do none of them flight commercial or something? An absolute litany of excuses about Covid and Heathrow’s fault, no actual ownership and no improvement - if anything the service on long haul flights is actually getting worse, it must be such a toxic work environment when it leads to customers getting treated that badly. The corp needs an entire clean out at the top and get people who know what they are doing and have their priorities correct. Love how they’ve changed the motto from ‘to fly, to serve’ to ‘BA better world, because they’re certainly not serving anyone
I'd guess that something must have happened over "the last three years"..........(thinking)..........ah yes......COVID !!!
I fly BA for work every other week and I'm so glad you made this video! The customer service is appalling and Heathrow is just an anxiety centre. BA should really pay for a benchmarking study so that they understand how they truly rank. How they get away with charging the prices they do is just beyond me.
I recently booked tickets to go to Dubai from LHR and have paid £50 more per ticket to fly Emirates and avoid BA....
Awesome channel BTW, keep it up!
The problem is probably not BA but Britain in general. Workers are lazy and are on tea breaks most of the time. Heathrow always was delaying passengers forcing them to arrive 3 hours before their departing connections. Charles de Gaulle has the same problem. You need to prioritize your connections. Britain, NO. France, NO. Unless it's very, very cheap and you have the time. I'm 65 and as far as I can remember it has always been like that.
First time I used Heathrow I literally had an anxiety attack. I wrote too many essays about the whys on this but it is definitely my least favorite airport in the world.
You might want to check out the videos covering the near catastrophic incidents Emirates had over the last couple of years. As the saying goes: not everything that appears to be shiny is gold! And Emirates is just that!
@@fuglbirdabsolute bollocks.
I quit flying anywhere with BA years ago, actively avoid using them now. I don't think I'll ever use them again. I too pay more just to avoid their flights. I fly a lot of long haul, plenty of shorter flights too. They won't miss me or gouging profit from my frequent flights. Their customer's appear to be just a nuisance.
I took BA from San Diego to Heathrow in Nov 2023. I had a connecting flight to Lisbon leaving 3.5 hours after landing. Plenty of time, right? Wrong. We actually landed about 1/2 hour early, but sat on the tarmac for two hours, first waiting for a gate space, then waiting for buses to arrive. By the time I got to the security area, they didn't let me proceed. Apparently, I was supposed to be there at least 1 hour before my departure, but I missed it by 1 minute. I pleaded with BA agents to let me in to no avail. They didn't care about the fact that my lateness was their fault and that my connecting flight was actually delayed by 20 minutes. No apology, no sympathy. They made me to go to the service counter with about 100 people in queue. It took me two hours to talk to the agent for rebooking and arrived in Lisbon via Madrid 7 hours late. BA and Heathrow were the worst I experienced.
I’m glad you made a video about BA. I had a horrible experience with them last spring out of Paris CDG airport. I was treated horribly by the staff who made us miss our flight and the literally refused to give us the correct customer service number for BA. It’s a very long story but we never recieved the number from BA so we went over to American and booked new flights with them and they took really good care of us. When I got home I tried to contact BA for my refund and to file a complaint and they wouldn’t take calls they said it was a different department via email so I emailed several times, just for them to respond once every month. They have horrible customer service and I will never fly with them again.
One of my BA flights got cancelled back in 2020 and I had to request a refund for it. Yeh, I am still waiting for that refund. It's clear BA is struggling financially and doing whatever nonsense they can to hoard money and not act ethically. BA used to be a good airline but now considering the price I pay for the quality I get, I would rather fly ryan air than BA.
@@Jess-ci8re I was truly surprised by how awful they are. I would try contacting your financial institution and see if they can help you get your refund. BA is a joke.
It's worth mentioning, the staff in CDG are not BA employees, they will probably be Swissport or Menzies.
BA call centres are however, absolute crap.
A wise decision. Neither will I...ever again!
Their staff genuinely don't know their contact numbers, or change the internal phone system and don't bother informing the staff of the new numbers. Last time I had a BA flight cancelled and we were waiting to get sorted, the staff were on the exact same call centre queue as I was on my own phone and I got through first.. and then they had no flights as it was too late with any alternatives already beeing booked, and abandoned us.
I think all the ground staff left in lockdown and never came back. We touched down 30 mins early and got to near the jetway. The lights to guide the plane onto the stand were off. The captain apologised. Some 15 minutes later they got turned on but only by a jetway operator who just happened to be passing - he was going to another gate. It took another 45 minutes to get someone to get the jetway in place. The captain kept us amused by giving us a commentary on his continuing attempts to get it resolved.
They had a massive layoff for ground staff during lockdown. I have family working there, so I know. When flying restarted normally, they couldn't hire and re-train people fast enough. Plus you gotta factor in for Heathrow that it's just overbooked, not enough space for the traffic it gets. If you miss your slot, you have to wait until someone else also misses theirs, so if anything goes wrong, you get massive delays. I try to avoid Heathrow, but will always expect delays if I must go there.
They didn’t leave, they were told they had to reapply for their jobs so that BA could renegotiate their contracts (aka screw them over)
@@fightlikeagirl9025 I think bonista meant airport ground staff employed by the airport and NOT those employed by BA as they have no say in contracts for staff who work for the airport (or i may add 3rd party staff that work for companiies that do some of the jobs such as ground handling ..just looked on Indeed and yes some are BA jobs BUT a lot are jobs that have been tendered out to other companies) so its a mish mash of ground staff from diffrent employers and a lot of those WERE let go during covid and the travel shut down and have since found other jobs so heathrow along wiith other airports are having great difficulty employing experienced staff or having to train them from scratch which takes time !
More like sacked/made redundant. And the airlines were then surprised they didn’t want to come back when they offered them job back- often on lesser terms
I work for a large supermarket warehouse and had loads of former travel industry colleagues join us, due to the extra trade, from restraints closing. Most of them stayed as they said that they earned more, and there was no point in leaving if they did not need to.
I flew BA from Australia to London Heathrow. There was no entertainment on the way, although they said there was an engineer working on it, and it would be repaired shortly. It was not available the whole flight. Forward six weeks to my return flight to Australia. It was the same jet with that same recording explaining the same lie because the entertainment problem was still not fixed. 21 hour flights are a nightmare without entertainment. Never flew with them again. What does it say about their other maintenance practices. Shocking.
The recent Skytrax report on BA expressed much the same concerns. They said that BA short haul is basically now just a budget airline experience, and long haul has a lot of problems and is more consistent with a 3 star airline. A very sad decline, illustrating how damaging thoughtless cost cutting can be.
I literally HAD the same issue on my business class overnight flight from JFK to LHR on Monday 5th June! Only one bus was sent that took the first class passengers and some business class passengers. We waited 30 mins to get off the plane when two more buses were sent.
Such a shambolic experience tbh!
I had a terrible experience when British airways cancelled our flight at Christmas from New York to london whilst on board (Xmas time) abandoned me and my family , no customer service , no rebooking . Still trying to get compensation but they completely ignore you . Gone down the legal route now and we were business passengers. This video highlights our same experiences
wow. Ignoring refund requests ? For business tickets no less !! WOW. Very bad.
If a vendor isn't playing ball it's easiest to pursue a charge back through your credit card issuer
Same happened to me. Was left stranded at Florida Airport. Thankfully American Airlines helped me find a room and rebook my flight the next day as part of one world. BA left me hanging. I will never forgive them for it.
were u stranded abroad or were u already sitting on the plane (onboard) when they cancelled ur flight? return flight cancelled while u were abroad is terrible either way.
That’s a terrible story
Well that reflects the current British economy well. I just recently flew with a few Asian airlines and Asia seems to be doing very well. Singapore air had great staff, Wifi on board and was super clean- all in ECONOMY. Vietnam Airlines had hot towels, welcome drinks, ADULT sized silverware, amazing meals no matter if it’s supper, dinner, lunch or breakfast (plus bubble tea on board)-all in ECONOMY
Except ba is not a British airline, it’s owned by a Spanish company
@@mrbachittarsingh9243 The company may be administratively in Spain, and may have Spanish origins, but IAG is headquartered in London.
There seems to be a general detonation in many companies which now only seem to pursue short term profits. My friend was on a Lufthansa flight where the passengers were kept in the plane on the ground waiting for 3 hours before take off and 2 hours after landing because of a ground crew strike. I recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise where they changed the departure port at the last minute to another port 400 km away thus causing chaos and lost money among the passengers...and Royal Caribbean offered no compensation for their actions. Instead they blamed the passengers. Just terrible and they do not care.
Another great example of BA’s disregard for anything other than profit, is the way in which they argued with Boeing about removing the crew rest bunks on their new 787-10s. They went to additional effort and spent extra money just so they could put in an extra row of economy seats on this aircraft. These -10s are used on 9+ hour flights and I know some crew who say their only option is to try and sleep on the floor or on a jump seat in the galley behind a curtain. Outrageous!
If the crew of a ship are treated so badly for enough time, eventually they will jump ship. It is happening to BA now. Other airlines are offering better treatment and conditions. Sometimes better pay. Either way, who wants to work for an employer who treats you like a dog. Brtish Airways deserves to fail.
I am shocked and surprised that there is no aviation regulation about the resting berths of the flying crew, like truck drivers have. The sleeper berth of a truck has to follow precise measurement requirements in order to qualify.
Dan, listening to your review gave me so many flashbacks, my blood pressure went through the roof. I actually paused the review a few times to take a time out. Heathrow has been my Achilles' heel in terms of my business travels throughout my career. My probably final and last business flight was through LHR enroute to Lisbon in January 2023 and it was thoroughly disgraceful mirroring many of your experiences. Well done on your terrific channel, but sadly I don't think BA and LHR will lose a moments sleep. As for the laid back and charming customer service of BA staff and flight crews, it is tiresome, condescending and no longer acceptable. I've had my fill of being blatantly disregarded by BA and LHR. Never again. Keep up your excellent work.
"the laid back and charming customer service of BA staff and flight crews, it is tiresome, condescending and no longer acceptable." I don't understand why laid back and charming is tiresome....
@@evaluateanalysis7974 I suspect the commenter is referencing an ad and being sarcastic.
My experiences of BA staff cabin crew are not so good. Unlike Emirates and Asian crew, who are smart, elegant, courteous and respectful, the BA staff look unkempt, unhygienic, extremely overweight, tattooed, and sweaty due to the exertion involved in looking after the passengers. Very unpleasant experiences tbh.
I was appalled at the condescending attitudes and rudeness of BA cabin crew on my recent trip back from the US
I hope a lot of people watch this video. It’s incredibly honest and like others have said you do a really good job of advocating for the crew. I had a similar experience with another airline waiting on a bus at JFK late at night and it was awful. This would have likely ended much worse with American passengers, like you noted😅
Oh, a lot of people will watch this video for sure. It´s just too bad that the ones who should see it won´t watch it. That is referring to the head honchos at BA. The ones making all the money, but never have anything to do with passengers. I flew with them a few months ago...and that was the last time.
Similar problem there; JFK was not designed for the traffic volumes it now has to manage. I flew from the new(ish) JFK Terminal 5 last week and it's a horrible overcrowded mess, with no decent food or shops. All the terminals at LHR are far better than that one, at least for economy passengers. It's hard to believe they didn't stop using the old TWA terminal until 2001, and that was designed for (count 'em) a whole six gates for 100-seater aircraft. Although the old terminal is a fabulous bit of early 1960's architecture (now the TWA Hotel, and worth a visit if you're flying through JFK)
Worst travel experience of my life was with BA last spring. It seriously had me considering whether I even want to bother with international travel anymore. I got over that, but now I’ll avoid BA like the plague for the rest of my life.
I think the pushback delays were because of the train cancellations and train strikes. Lots of government organisations (including border force, our train companies have been on strike). These have been ongoing for the last few months and probably explains why there are massive issues at Heathrow as people can't get to work or numbers are down.
The pushback problems would be down to Heathrow staff mismanagement.
Agreed. The freak snow day in early Dec 2022 had the same results because of train delays and staffing issues. I don't know what the solution is, but someone high up in BAA/Heathrow is paid good money to think about and cater for this. The status quo is unacceptable.
Border force is employed by the government but pushback trucks are on Heathrow, there’s no justification for them being on strike.
@@joshuav9005 Are you forgetting the low pay and high inflation that’s impacting lower income staff much more.
This is the general chaos I find in England across the board, I’ve lived her 13 years now and you do get used to it, surprisingly and your tolerance levels become a lot higher
We lived in UK for 10 but coming from Italy this looks still like perfection compared. Not that we don't see the defects but there's much worse in terms of general managing of the nation. BA got loads worse though.
Hi Dan, I’m also a gold member with BA
Took a flight to jfk with them a few weeks ago and it was the worst business class experience I’ve ever had. I’m disabled and was treated with disdain and a very poor attitude by one of the members of cabin crew which made me feel really uncomfortable. Other passengers around me were treated much better maybe because they looked like more ‘elite’ passengers than me. They also still haven’t added any tier points for my trip.
Heathrow is an embarrassing airport. Leagues behind others in the world.
I’m now decided to try and status match with another airline.
Great videos by the way Dan.
You needn´t look like an elite traveler in order to be treated well. I hope that you can find another airline that suits your standards. I will not be flying with BA again. Take care.
@@theeconomytraveler9999 really appreciate your message. Thanks. Take care too. Have a good weekend
Try to switch to Qatar
@@Fedora_JP that’s a very good idea
Will do!
Thanks
Gold for life?
This is not the only time BA has been disgraceful. Listen to this:
Okay so me and my family were going to Heathrow, and then to Scotland and our flight to Heathrow got delayed which made us scared of missing our connection us to Scotland. Being scared, we boarded our flight and just hoped for the best. One hour before our plane would land, we learnt that the connecting flight to Scotland was already boarding, so my dad bought internet on the plane to see if we could get on the next flight to Glasgow. The WiFi did not work so we would just have to try and get on the flight by going to a connection officer in Heathrow.When we landed, we were pleasantly surprised by a BA worker eating for us outside, we thought they were going to give us flight tickets to that next flight, but instead they gave us the tickets to a flight in the next morning. This wasn’t the bad bit, as this normally happens, but what she does next is the bad bit. SHE GIVES US A HOTEL ROOM IN LUETON. For people who don’t know where this is, this a 2 hour drive from Heathrow. THE PLANE TICKETS THAT SHE GAVE SAID OUR BOARDING TIME WAS 6 AM. So in short terms, BA wanted us to take a 2 hour drive to Lurton at 10pm and get there at 12 am. Then sleep for… wait… we would not even be able to sleep BECAUSE WE WOULD HAVE TO LEAVE LEUTIPN AT 12:30 TO GET TO HEATHROW ON TIME! Luckily, my dad knew how far away Lurton was, but just imagine if your a foreigner and didn’t know how far away it was?
😮
Lurton ? Leutipn ? I think the experience affected your spelling - I suspect you meant Luton 😀
Totally agree with the criticisms of BA. I have been a regular flyer with them for many years and have remained loyal due to what I perceived to be a superior level of customer service. About 4 years ago I first started seeing the signs of their decline. This included cancelled, rescheduled flights which I tolerated at first. A 1st class flight to Australia was pleasant but was comparable to business class on other airlines at best. After this the fall in service standards became the norm and it seemed that every trip would have at least one cancellation. Admittedly this would usually be a couple of weeks prior to flying but did mean having to rebook connections due to the changed schedule. It finally cam to a head this year when I was notified on the way to the Munich airport that my flight had been cancelled. I can understand that these things happen but the way BA handled the situation was Appalling. Basically leaving us stranded with no assistance (No presence at the airport and impossible to get through to assistance by phone). Furthermore. The 'next available' flight they booked us on was, in fact a later flight the following day with a flight with available seats before that. It was fortunate that I re-booked on the earlier flight as the later one was also cancelled. On a subsequent flight I had a similar experience with the added bonus of a member of the cabin staff that had no interest in assisting passengers. I am always polite and kind to cabin staff as, they have to deal with some really difficult customers but I do not think it acceptable to basically be ignored for the entire flight.
Suffice to say. I am no longer a loyal BA customer and now use competitors unless BA are the only realistic option for my flight needs.
I would not be surprised if their drive to make profit at the expense of quality of service will see them go the same way as other failed airlines in the not too distant future.
Flying into heathrow is a nightmare at the moment no matter the airline you fly. The whole country is in disarray at the moment so this doesn't surprise me. Exact same thing happened to me when I came back from Sweden in January.
Sad
It's called brexit and the tory party both a disgrace and the country
Excuse me, but the whole country is not in disarray at the moment. Talk about hyperbole!
British Airways has gone down hill so bad, I was genuinely in shock at the business class service I received. The food,the dirty seat, horrific
bloody hell disgraced by a business class flight,99% of people can only WISH for business class on a long haul flight cry ur eyes out about smth v small
@@jensenjohn1640Pfft.
@@jensenjohn1640if they’re paying for a service they should be getting that service, it’s the airline’s fault . Maybe you should stop crying about being poor lmao
hope you made a full recovery
business class really isn’t that expensive though.
The last time I traveled through Heathrow, the business class got off and we got to the terminal door and it was locked! Nobody at the airport seemed aware and we tried to open the door only to yelled at by airport security. After waiting about 20 minutes, we finally were able to leave.
This is after more passengers in the plane we're all backed up in the hallway. Not to mention my bags were lost for my connection to Iceland. They arrived two days later!
Doors from airside can be opened...alarmed but open.
My boyfriends mum works for BA and has done for like 30 years and she’s mentioned many times that the job is terrible now.
p.s. - prior to the return flight I had complained to BA about the outward flight and had no acknowledgement at all - so a little tip for you all, I filmed all of the things that went wrong on the return flight and when I complained about the return flight (and the outward flight again) letting them know I had filmed they replied within 48 hours and agreed compensation within 72 hours.........
Would this be Dr Emille Shoufhausen? I know of a paraplegic veteran whose case you might be interested in.
Why "p.s."? That's a bit weird.....
“I vill take zis case. You must deliver ze fee directly to me”
-Dr Emil Shauffausen
I believe it’s 8 times harder gaining new customers than keeping existing ones!
Love your videos.
Ive also experienced terrible customer service from BA when there are delays. An 8-hour flight from Heathrow to Newark turned into a two-day nightmare with minimal communication from BA to explain what was going on.
That said, I try to remind myself that the fact that we live in a time that a thing such as an airline industry even exists is a miracle.
Awesome, honest and heartfelt video. As an aviator, the Speed bird call sign meant a lot. It was a recognition of a great airline that did things right. Many Atlantic crossings with our Speed bird brethren. It’s really sad that this proud airline has resorted to making excuses during noncritical situations. I hope they refocus on their priorities.
yes I agree
I've found, as you have - that being polite, showing a smile even in the worst situations, and not panicking, you will find someone to help you get through the inconvenience. I've been rebooked with upgrades, I've been shuttled to stay the night free at a hotel and been picked up in time for the morning flight. I've had flight attendants even move me to business class from economy. So, as I find often in life, a positive attitude and empathy for people who work hard and are faced with constant complaints during situations they can't control, I experience luck in my misfortune. ;-)
Yes, treating people with respect and politeness does pay dividends.
I wish that were always true, it is sometimes. But my experience is never with BA. STAR ALLIANCE Airlines, EMIRATES, QATAR, SINGAPORE, CATHAY … BUT never one world or sky team
I’ve flown into LHR several times in the past and always via SIA or Lufthansa. Never tried BA after hearing so many horror stories over the years…
6 years ago I did applied for a bus driver at BA. In the job advert they never mentioned how much is the salary for this position. So I went trough a long process interview. On final interview I found that they pay peanuts and I refused to work for them.
...and yet(!!!)...there are bus drivers working for BA, and other airlines. Pay can't be THAT bad !!! 🤔
@@ChrisM541 £237 pounds a week for driving a bus ? This is a joke!
@@UraFlight investment banking pays much better
@@UraFlight was this 40 hour/week or a flexible schedule, part time position
@@ChrisM541yea, people who share one hmo with 15 other ppl.
As a loyal BA gold card holder who has been flying with them for decades and former GGL member, I have to agree. I've never had any problems with BA's friendly cabin crew however the onboard product and its offerings is nothing in comparison to their competitors. It's been a shame to see their race to the bottom coming from someone who genuinely loves the airline.
Hello Zac, thanks for your input. Since when has B.A. crew been 'friendly' or even offer 'sanitary' food? Yes, most commenters are 'Gold Card' holders and when was the last time that any BA staff truly 'recognised' that? I recognise 'service' and 'quality' over friendliness any day. I don't fly on an airline for 'friendliness'. I fly for 'safety' and quality, for example. Any supposed 'Gold Card' holder on BA and via LHR must be having their airfare paid for by a company and not 'personally'. Nobody with any 'sanity' would choose to fly BA in any 'premium' class compared to the likes of Singapore/Emirates/Qatar etc.,
🙏 Zac, may I humbly suggest that you spend your hard earned money by switching to flying Singapore Airlines from today! ... Even when you fly Economy you'll still experience great Service, Safety and Security with SIA!! Thus, value for your £££ all the way! 👏😉
Totally disagree . They went through a stage of going down hill , but def on there way up again. Flown cathay this year Singapore . I would say Singapore are by far the best airline but cathay we’re rubbish.
I've always had a very enjoyable experience with decent food and good service. In all my years of flying, multiple business trips annually, I've had just one cancellation. I guess I've been fairly lucky. However, what happened in this video is unacceptable and it's clear from the comments that, unless things change soon, it'll be an airline in trouble.
@@karmascotland8 Absolutely agree
My most disappointing experience with my BA flight was a 13-14 hour long flight from LHR to HND (and the same experience return). within a 14 hour flight we were only fed twice and if I remember food service started 2 hours after and about 2 hours before the end of the flight. being that there was a 9-10 hour gap between being fed. I was absolutely starving and you bet as soon as I was in Tokyo I found a konbini.
As someone who will do that exact flight in May, thanks for the heads-up! 😬
@@kiraflo98 I'm literally about to do the same exact flight again in like 5 weeks lol
@@Oliboy22 well, fingers crossed for you 😅
Were you in economy? It has been that way as long as I can remember on long flights on most airlines. Feed you right before landing, and feed you right after take off. Nothing for 10 hours. I don't understand the reason behind feeding people on long flights right before they are landing. This is common.
@@kennethlee4894 Yes economy
I had the worse experience in December flying Gatwick to Malaysia with BA. flight was 2pm and I arrived around 10.30 and queued to drop my bags in as I couldn’t check in online (other passengers told me later they couldn’t either). Suddenly at 11am, 5 Check in counters closed leaving just one open so the queue basically didn’t move from 11-12pm. Only one BA staff was around trying to answer questions but we weren’t told any information about why and what was happening. At 12pm they fast tracked all customers for a different flight leaving at 1pm to the front which like I said only 1 counter was open . Chaos ensued- everyone was shouting and everyone surrounded the BA staff- she said that the next shift doesn’t start until 1pm - people were angry and worried about missing their flights as we still hasn’t passed through security. That poor woman cried and I heard her walk away saying ‘ I can’t do this’. Finally at 1pm more staff turned up and opened the counters and it was still chaos , ppl just pushed passed us and swarmed to the counter. Me and my friend ran so hard and fast to get to the gate and made it at 2pm on the dot. Everyone was seated at 3pm due to the delay at the check desk but then they announced that we have to wait for 6 more passengers and at 4pm ,2 still haven’t turned up so they need to off load their bags which took another hour. Then they said we needed to wait for de icing which took another hour. And we finally took off just before 5pm. The flight attendant that looked after out section was so unfriendly and looked fed up. We were guna miss our connecting flight and the flight attendant told us that 230 Out of around 300 passengers have missed their connecting flights at this point. Absolute nightmare as the next connecting flight was in 12;hours. I would just rather pay more for a different airline next time
But hey: they saved *_a few hundred quid_* by not having those five (low-pay) staff members manning the counters for those two hours!
I'm sure some incompetent bean-counter thought that was worth costing them many times more in cancellation fees and hundreds of people never wanting to fly with them again...
BA are the only airline that have managed to lose my luggage. Fortunately it was on the home-bound trip, nevertheless even that experience was daunting, since the staff at LHR were far from helpful. Took them five days to return it which was hardly a prompt service.
You have choices but it seems like the entire airline industry in around London is being run poorly. The system is broken.
@@JeanClaudeCOCOlike everything in Britain
I work overseas so have flown from and to Gatwick and Heathrow many times over the years, but never had anywhere near the problems in the video or your description. I've never flown BA though.
i worked for British Airways and its a very hard place as Cabin Crew to make a sustainable life down in London. The class has gone.
As a BA Executive club member, I 100% agree with the conclusion of your video. The lack of empathy, organization and resource makes my travels with BA never relazing but always anxious as to what will go wrong. Crew cabin need to stop gossiping as much and be empowered to assist in delay management much more effectively, the backup capacity at Heathrow needs to be upgraded substantially to accomodate the challenges of an airport operating at 99.9%. BA execs should travel undercover and really experience how inconsistent and unprofessional parts of their customer journey truly are.
Well said. Our experience arriving in LHR from Geneva was a story in itself (I even live tweeted for over an hour). Flight had been cancelled twice. The long hold on the ground. The damaged baggage. The refusal to offer compensation for the cancellations. The losing of the suitcase when they came to pick up the damaged baggage. The pitiful offer of compensation for the lost suitcase.
Ultimately, they’ve lost me as a customer and I will only fly BA from now as a last choice.
I haven't traveled through Heathrow or with BA in years for these reasons. I see horrible things like this all the time. I only really travel to Houston TX so I take the extra 4 hour drive to Manchester to get a direct flight on Singapore. You've just validated my views so I appreciate your candour
Brilliant move flying to/from Manchester UK -- but be sure to spend a couple of days in Manchester, check out the museums and the restaurants and pubs where you will meet lovely friendly people and great food and beverages.
Singapore Airlines flies from Houston to Manchester? Where do I join
@@joshgeorge728 SQ51 and SQ52 are the call signs
Funny. Manchester airport is even worse. I flew in and out of it every week for a year.
BA corporate staff seems to act like govt employees. Dont work, or give a F about anyone
Last time we flew B.A., we flew overnight in business from Barbados to London in January 2019 and I got a salad, with a side salad - they'd forgotten to put the chicken in the main dish! Then in the morning I didn't get any breakfast because they'd run out! Their weird seat formation meant that when fully extended, if you were in a window seat, you had to step over the person next to you. I wonder what it was like in economy?? Never again! I'd rather change planes somewhere in North America with another carrier if I was going to the Caribbean again than fly direct with them.
You’re absolutely correct! I try to avoid BA and Heathrow for the same reasons. Service is not great and you have to deal with an airport that is over its capacity. What a mess!
You’ve just confirmed my feeling that LHR is a tip, and I’m right to avoid it. I moved from London a few years ago, and being freed from having to use LHR is one of the biggest plus points. We now have our favoured transit airports (home airport is Edinburgh). We’re currently away on hols having used one of your fave airlines, Qatar, though they don’t offer QSuites from there. Even so, the Qatar product (including transit at Doha) is infinitely better than anything available from BA/LHR.
Sounds like you made a good move.
I don’t disagree that BA is a disgrace but let’s not pretend Qatar is all amazing though. I flew with them to Melbourne at Christmas from London. LHR-DOH was a new A380 and excellent but the long 12+ hour flight was on a wreck. I was appauled at how awful it was. It’s often the aircraft, not the airline which makes or breaks the experience.mThat said the BA Business lounge at T3 is an absolute disgrace and should be closed as it does more damage to the brand than good. I’ll always use Quantas or Cathy there if possible.
@@rwrobwalker lol Qantas is a disgrace
Your summary towards the end was spot on. For years BA have prioritised profit over not only customers but staff as well. Before COVID was even a factor BA flight and cabin crew were striking over pay disputes. During COVID they laid off a huge amount of the workforce, particularly ground staff, hence the issues arising in the last 18 months. I’m 99% sure the issue was not that there was no bus or pushback tug… there was nobody to operate them. The workforce they laid off have found better jobs with better pay so have not returned. Maybe if they considered how they treated people rather than their spreadsheets they could solve these issues.
Great video Dan. After my experience with BA the last two years, them cancelling flights including a major vacation and for a family wedding, I have cut all my ties with the airline. I was previously a Gold Executive Club member and have even gone through the arduous process of cancelled my membership with them as I never intend to fly BA ever again.
As for Heathrow, it is an airport I will try to avoid at all costs. I accidentally forgot how utterly terrible the experience was and travelled through LHR a couple of months ago... My flight was just over an hour but the transit time through the airport and to my car was nearly two hours. Terrible airline, awful airport.
"arduous process of cancelling my membership"
--> What do you mean "arduous process"?
Dan, if you want an experience that will make Heathrow pale by comparison, try Frankfurt.
Getting 10 people through security takes 25 minutes, because airport personnel insist on organizing your X-ray tray for you, VERY slowly.
This is the nation that went thru Norway in 4 hours! What happened to them?
All the personnel was laid off during COVID - surprisingly they refused to come back to their underpaid jobs dealing with that daily shitshow being unsure of that next plandemic. Can’t blame the guys - currently some tertiary tear dudes are filling in. I must agree that Germany has gone totally down the toilet as well. I try to fly nonstop into DUS when going there, but that can also be a hellhole for same reasons…
"..went through Norway in 4 hours!".. Yeah, but instead of losing your suitcase you lost a battleship ! (The Blucher in Oslofjiord)
@@777torch777 Munich is much better, one of the best airports in Europe.
Well... they are GERMAN, after all... Just be glad they're not putting you on trains.
@@HC-cb4yp OMG! 😬😬😂
I flew BA from Heathrow Airport to Belfast Airport on 1st April, 2020. I believe it was one of the very few flights still operating within the UK, let alone outside the UK. The whole flight experience was fine, there were about 10 of us on the outward journey, and about 5 of us on the inward journey.
Belfast airport felt like a haunted house, like an abandoned place, there barely were any people around.
been there a couple of times, pretty sure only one person works there
@@N_O_P_E...noabsolutelynot If its Aldergrove your talking about...sounds about right.🤣
Heathrow is a complete joke. A national embarrassment.
I met with a friend this week who is an airside worker at Heathrow. He told me that the work culture of staff on airside is disgraceful. Last week, due to a plane being delayed, he and a colleague decided to pick up two boxes instead of one to carry to the aircraft to save time and be more efficient. As they were about to reach the aircraft a union official screamed at them to stop what they were doing, return to where they'd come from, drop off one of the items and then go back carrying just the one item. This union official said that they were never to try and do something like that again, and no it wasn't a safety issue it was purely because that's not how they operate! My friend was disgusted, he said that the staff do the absolute minimum at Heathrow. He's only there temporary as he's waiting to get a pilots job.
😱
Did you tell them to tell the Union dude to get stuffed? I work on the trains in Sydney and have had my fair share of problems with the Union here, but I just generally tell them to get stuffed now and they can’t say anything because I’m no longer a member of theirs. Best work decision I’ve made 😂
Ah unions. They are the worst. I was a member of a union one for a year, I was very glad to not renew my membership.
unions, for all their faults, are why children don't clean chimneys and we have pensions, weekends, sick pay and holidays during which we can travel. BA in general and Willie Walsh in particular went to war with their staff to gut their benefits and change their terms, as the board and shareholders doubled down on their bonuses. Legacy flag carriers have problems with the decent contracts they gave out in the past, but if you treat people like shit, don't be surprised if they don't give a shit. British management writ large.
probably because they get treated and paid shit
Really feels like everything is falling apart, not just BA. There's no resilience in any system. One small hiccup and delays/shortages are extreme. Society is highly strung.
I am just amazed you managed to get through on the phone to someone from BA. I spent weeks trying to phone BA after I needed to amend something on a flight of mine from Edinburgh to London and I failed to get through every single time. I couldn't work out a way to talk to someone over the phone no matter how many numbers I tried to call. Eventually I make the decision to go to Edinburgh airport (which is 1h 30m away from where I live) to try and talk to them in person and I did eventually get it sorted that way. But a real inconvenience to have to use up my entire Sunday to go on a 3h round trip to fix a simple booking detail with my flight. I have solidly refused to fly BA since.
KLM has a text-message service through FB and Whattsapp now a days. That often goes quicker than calling.
Well done Dan. Unfortunately your story is not a rare one. We are flying through LHR on BA in a couple of weeks. I purposely booked a 4 hour connection knowing all to well what a “disgrace “ BA and LHR can be. Thanks for a great and honest review.
why does this guy think BA owns LHR?
@@noob.168I mean it's their main hub if they can't perform well in their main hub then u know the airline has a lot of issues
@@noob.168 BA manages the ground crew services at T5
Great video, I went through terminal 3 during the summer. Security line was 3 hours and the terminal is a sweatbox- thing i've learned is to give yourself massive buffer time between flights or even stay overnight to break it up.
Oh dear I didn't want to hear that as I'm flying Emirates into Terminal 3 in April from Saigon. Previous flights have been to Birmingham but that is an extra 350 pounds so decided to give Heathrow a go.
Same. I now add 4 hours for connections.
I had a really bad trip with BA a few weeks ago from Chicago (ORD to London (LHR) booked at business class. The plane arrived too late in Chicago so my night flight was postponed and American Airlines gave me a night at the Hyatt hotel. Next morning i came back to the lounge and they gave me a nice breakfast because that was not included at the hotel. The start at Chicago was delayed by nearly 1 hour due to technical issues at the plane. We arrived too late for my next connection because 10pm London Heathrow shuts down operation. There was no BA member to give us a hotel etc. Security people gathered all passengers and forced us to "sleep" at a gate. next morning i talked to the BA service at the counter and when i was asking why nobody was there the evening before I was threatened to be arrested by the security for being offensive - I was totally calm at this moment.
I did this flight several times during the last years because my employer booked it. So our travel agency took care and refunds from BA took over 2 months.
The BA people at the cabin were super friendly but besides that BA is a total mess and LHR is now one of the worst airports i have seen all over Europe.
Hi Dan, having used BA regally for many years I agree with some of your responses, I agree the staff have always been great but people higher up are not interested in passengers, just profit. As a british customer, sadly its back to Emirates for me.
Apparently BA has been cancelling flights all over the shop recently - we got a call last week to let us know they had cancelled our flights from Heathrow to Japan and back for March! Fortunately we could be rebooked for almost the same time with JAL (and that seems entirely for the best, especially after watching this video!) but what a mess :(
JAL is a much better product than BA. You'll be thankful that BA Canceled.
What flight number was it? I'm booked with them for June and this is really concerning...
JAL is fantastic and their business class offering is extremely good
We flew Mexico City to LHR a few months ago. The boarding process by the BA staff at Mexico City was utterly chaotic. We had checked in online and already had our boarding passes. On arrival at the gate, there was complete chaos. Boarding gate staff read out an incredibly long list of people to come to the counter. It turned out they did not accept the online boarding passes on our phones so we all had to queue to get a paper one. Most of those in the queue were First and Club passengers. After 30 minutes or so with a very disorganized queueing process we finally managed to get our paper boarding passes, by which time most Economy passengers had already boarded. Given there is a flight from MEX to LHR every day surely they should not have this kind of chaos? The food and service on board was great. We were in transit to Lisbon at Heathrow but because of the delays at MEX we missed our connection. BA then transferred our flight to a TAP flight and lost our bags in the transfer. We finally got our bags two days later with some substantial damage to one. We tried to claim the damage from BA but they blamed the damage on TAP and washed their hands of it. We just gave up!
I don't know if this is still available, but I used to fly Virgin upper class out of Heathrow. They would pick me up at my hotel and drive me to a private entrance where they would check my bag, check my passport and escort me to the lounge. Brilliant.
"Why have you booked a brain surgery on the day you land with British Airways at Heathrow" - now THAT took me out!
My husband and I travel to Germany a few times a year, and we never connect through Heathrow. It's always been a nightmare, we just fly direct from the US to Frankfurt. We stopped using BA years ago.
Flew into Heathrow with British Airways in September for the first time for a short visit with my school and I completely understand their incompetence. Firstly we had a very similar bus issue, and when the bus arrived at the terminal the door was locked, and nobody knew how to open it. Somehow nobody knew how to open the main entrance into the terminal for bus passengers! We were delayed only an hour and a half maybe overall so I do consider myself lucky enough, thankfully we didn’t miss anything important only a tour of London scheduled for my tour group. The surprising thing is just how unorganised and slow they are at the literal home of British Airways
Look at the people working at Heathrow and you will see the problem. None of them are British .
@@howardneil8164 I don’t really care who is working for them British or foreign, what matters is that British Airways has major operating issues in general. No airline should have that little control over a situation, I even managed to have a way better flights experience with Ryanair operations wise recently, we left slightly early on both trips! EasyJet were decent when I flew with them last year as well. Crazy that budget airlines are doing a better job at times, at least in my few experiences
@@howardneil8164 That's definitely not the problem. Lufthansa, Ryanair and KLM also have a lot of foreign staff and they all have very smooth operations.
@@mstrmren look at the foreign staff working for Ryanair etc and then look at the foreign staff in Heathrow.
Economy on BA is now like Ryanair. Paid food, not reclinabile seats and lack of managment.
Heathrow is a nightmare!! My husband and I returned to the UK from LAX last year and everyone's bags were delayed for over FOUR HOURS! Apparently there was some sort of shortage in workers that day and hundreds of flights had delayed/lost baggage, but it was a VERY negative experience to say the least.
That was probably the baggage handlers' strike that they had last year. That made the national news, it got so bad.
I live in the UK and have to deal with Heathrow quite regularly. Many years ago I had exactly the 29 minutes before scheduled departure experience you describe. I was told to go to the tickets counter to rebook my flight. I went, there was no queue, rebooked it within minutes for the next flight in two hours and went through security. I cleared security 15 minutes before the scheduled time of my original flight. I went to the gate of my original flight and saw that boarding had just commenced. I showed my printed paper original boarding pass and asked to board. I was refused. I argued but they were adamant, regardless of the fact that the flight was both a bit late and not fully booked.
Obviously, I haven’t been flying BA almost at all since. I prefer Lufthansa and Star Alliance. I only use BA when I have to go to Spain, as they have the monopoly by owning Iberia. For the few times that I am forced to use them, they still astonish me. How can they manage, even though they have full and exclusive use of Terminal 5, probably one of the best terminals in the world and the biggest at Heathrow, to still operate some flights from Terminal 3? Just beats any logic…
Wondering if there were any security laws that prevent you from boarding your flight, which I guess may not always been logically obvious e.g. some lounge hoppers departing on Qantas flights from T1 @ Changi Airport were reportedly banned by airport security from taking the shuttle bus to T4, where they had wanted to visit the lounge of fellow OneWorld airline Cathay Pacific, as their flight wasn't departing from T4 (where security is done before the lounge (& on shuttle buses going to it), unlike in T1 where security is done at the aircraft's gate)
@@lzh4950 I can sort of guess how this kind of security arrangements came about. Lockerbie, if anyone can remember it, was due to someone checking in a bomb then not showing up for his supposed flight, so I can see why sudden unscheduled passengers would make them antsy but I suspect the newer generation of workers would not have known of the "why"s now that the particular incident was close to 4 decades in the past.
They have to hold onto their T3 slots in case of overspill or expansion.
The issue is pure greed on the part of LHR and BA. They aren't willing to pay the wages necessary to bring back the ground crew and luggage crew they fired during the covid lockdown. They still think they can pay some shite non-livable amount of salary same as they did prior to COVID and inflation and it obviously isn't working.
Same thing happened in amsterdam, which led to a horrible post-covid first summer and complete luggage meltdown with over 50000 pieces of luggage lost or so heavily delayed the people whose luggage it was never got it back. The airport fixed it by providing a 'temporary' wage increase which in fact was just a living wage at this point because the netherlands are incredibly expensive to live in nowadays. Then the airport got rid of the temporary wage increase, everybody quit, and the shit show was back on until the government directly intervened and the CEO was fired. The British government would never dare to interfere or put pressure on businesses even if the situation is embarassing for the country and bad for workers because business leaders are saints in British politics whose decisions can never be questioned. Its disgusting.
No Brexit and the underpaid working class could have drawn their bosses in front of EU working court😢
I have flown BA only once in the last year (no other options) Heathrow - Milan route. The plane picking us up was 5 hours late due to being delayed leaving Heathrow earlier that day. When we eventually boarded, it was the last flight and we were told as we sat on the tarmac for another hour that the flight may not be allowed to land at Heathrow as there was no ground staff to receive the aircraft, and we may be diverted to stanstead. Amazing my we made it to Heathrow at about 1:15am when we should have arrived at about 8pm. Never had a smooth experience with BA since the late 1990’s
I fully agree with what Dan said. I fly at least once a month from Heathrow and it is most of time terminal 5 with BA. The last 3 flights has been excatly as described. I have started to look for alternatives to both BA an Heathrow, it's too exhausting to have it like this.
Virgin Atlantic is a fine option. Although recently I have seen their prices go up tremendously on the LAX/Heathrow route. Maybe VA is seeing a surge of customers running away from BA.
Well
Dublin or Paris are good alternatives to Heathrow.
I so wished I have watched this video before making my decision to fly BA. My family and I had total 4 trips with BA during our Europe trip and all had insane issues. They have a habit of cancelling extremely last minute where some of my family got their flights cancelled without notification (u realise until u start looking for the gates), the rebooked flights get cancelled again and at the absolute last minute, they will notify u that they are not flying at all to the destination for the day. On top of that they lost their luggage (Manchester to London). Those flying through Frankfurt waited 3 hrs for their luggages after delays (literally whole day wasted). We then have a flight to Milan a couple of days later (where they tried to bump me off my fully paid Biz class seats with a one world sapphire status -- ok I know I'm not emerald but still!) and bumped my family members off the flight entirely and I only managed to save everyone after much protest, as we're travelling with elderlies and had connections the next day. The absolute nightmare was Milan back to London where they only told us 9 hrs before departure they are cancelling all Milan flights and we had a long connection flight back to Asia. The hotline was useless as it was a voice recording "we have too many requests right now and cannot take ur call, bye!" and then hung up. They are absolutely prepared to abandon their passengers last min and we had to find our own way to London last min. Luckily we were able to last min got Lufthansa tickets transiting through Frankfurt that added so much complication to the journey and left has absolutely no time to eat throughout the day, and needless to say the replacement tickets was insanely expensive coz it was so last minute. I get that airline travels are rarely smooth but wouldn't it hurt to let people know a bit more in advance? We got cancelled by AirFrance as well but they let u know 48 hrs in advance, automatically rebooked us to the next flight, with options online to choose another flight if we would like to. It was seriously fine, we just rearrange the water taxi and got to enjoy a bit more of Venice. BA just completely disregard people's time, schedule, and wellbeing. Oh and I forgot, the same people who lost their bags in Manchester have their bags lost again on their trip back to Asia, seriously what is happening
After hearing the delays you got at heathrow. I honestly think was it due to the strikes that affected the lack staff working at the airport. But that’s just my guess.
BA only has BA staff working on their planes. A lot of BA staff member had worked for them for years and in so doing amassed a good waged and good length of service packages . So what did BA do when the pandemic hit they laid off all its experience staff, instead of putting them on furlough. Don't forget the British government guarantee 80% of the wages due to the pandemic for all UK workers, so it would have cost BA nothing to keep its experience staff. Then when the pandemic finished BA tried to get it experience staff back. On less wages and loss on length of service, which basically means they had to start from the bottom again and surprise surprise the experience staff clearly gave BA the middle finger. Really if you gave BA 5,10,15,20,25,30 years and more of service would you go back.
@@SCYorks there haven’t been any strikes at Heathrow in the last few months and none at all by British Airways.
@@colinjosling2108 seems like BA and Qantas were copying each other with how they treated their more experienced staff through the pandemic!
@@markusx22 No, it's the strikes on public transport which people are talking about, meaning people couldn't get to work or were late if travelling by car.
That's why I always fly direct and spend more money on that rather than on the class. Takes out all this layover stress. Unless there is absolutely no direct connection and then I schedule a longer layover to reduce the risk of having to run around in a hurry or missing the connecting flight.
Current BA Gold member here. Decided recently to abandon them in favour of SkyTeam. Have been treated shockingly in LHR T5 - being made to wait (with all the other Group 1 Passengers) - standing at the automatic gates for over an hour with no explanation, no apologies and a terrible attitude. In my several BA Flights since I think I've just realised that the boarding, flying and deplaning experience are in fact just terrible, and the actual product that they provide is super basic. I have been making excuses for them because I'm a Gold Member, and therefore the pre-flight experience at Heathrow is excellent - but the actual service and punctuality is seriously sub-par, and their partner airlines - AA in particular are sometimes even worse. So I'm no longer making the effort to fly BA as I used to in order to get my tier points - and am going full throttle for the SkyTeam alliance to see how they compare. But yeah. Bye BA!
A travel goal I have this year is to fly business class internationally at least once this year, and have to say, while not solely because of you, but in large part thanks to you, I already know I'm not wasting my money or miles or points on a BA business class flight.
Thats a shame cos this review is full of inaccuracies
If you have British Airways club points I think you can use them on Qatar Airways. Worth looking into anyway, it will be a fantastic experience.
Try Emirates A380 Business class it's great and I'll be flying it this April sadly the first leg is on a B777.
You wont regret it!
I fly business with BA from LHR to SJC 4-5 times a year and this video is extremely accurate.
I once waited 6 hours(!) for a gate after landing at LHR on a red eye with my wife who was 8 months pregnant. Then we got sent to a bus gate and waited another 90 mins for buses (during which time we were told they couldn’t find drivers).
It is so blatantly obvious that management has absolutely no regard for customers or staff. The absolute worst kinds of unimaginative, spreadsheet-oriented MBAs who know nothing of innovation and think being competitive means nickel and diming every last detail.
Really a stain on our national reputation, in many ways a fantastic fit for the era of Liz Truss , where the most unremarkable people are somehow in positions of responsibility.
We need a cultural reset in Britain and need to start valuing excellence.
BA needs to hit rock bottom and soon.
_We need a cultural reset in Britain and need to start valuing excellence._
I agree. Let's introduce Communism into the UK to replace capitalism. Let's bring back Arthur Scargill to the unions, too.
As I mention in my post above British airports have monetised every inch of their scruffy dirty shopping malls with runways outside. Try driving to Edinburgh airport if you want to experience an approach that's worse than any other in Europe.
@Locutus we don't even have capitalism (on most days I'm a fan of it) we have cronyism.
@@Fedora_JP If you really believe that, I suggest you go to South Africa, Russia or China, and experience life there, then come back to the UK, and tell me that we're cronyism.
I'm not going to lie and saying that there is no cronyism in the UK, but, it's on a small scale compared to the rest of the world, and well within European norms.
If you ask the people from those countries that are living in the UK, they will tell you that the system works, and our politicians are saints compared to theirs.
My wife is a flight attendant for Finnair. BA is leasing some of Finnair's A321 and using Finnair's crew. They go to Heathrow for 5 days and fly from there. She was surprised how rushed everything is and the constant delays on everything. This also stresses the already thin crew to the max. Food just in general did not seem of good quality. Drink variety and less of ready made drink seemed good in business. For flagship carrier surprising emphasis put on selling stuff in flight. She also thought it was hilarious that BA has warnings on their app for titles, like Lord. So you need to use the titles constantly when talking. That to her and I would imagine anybody in the Nordics seemed pretty silly and something from 100 years ago.
i have had the exact same negative experiences with BA in the past and whenever possible try to avoid flying with BA or go via Heathrow.
You make vicarious travel as good as the real thing!
Hi Dan. Me and my husband paid nearly a grand for business class from Gatwick to Malaga to sit in a normal cramped seat. The row behind us was economy... same seats. OK we got breakfast but I can say certainly not worth it.
Dan, couldn’t agree more. My girlfriends flight from LHR to Toronto was overbooked this summer (by 37 seats!). She was going to a funeral and after being bumped but the BA customer service experience was appalling
I honestly did not think it could get this bad.. I saw your video just before flying with BA from Brussels to Australia and back, I was hopeful that my expierence would be better but on the contrary:
- the flight from Brussels to London got cancelled 15 minutes before the planned departure time
- they rebooked me and lost my luggage at LHR, it took 6 days for them to recover it and to ship it to my final destination (after daily follow up from my side)
- on the flight back home a similar thing happened, the connecting flight from LHR to BRU got cancelled together with many many others
- it did not really make any difference since I would have missed my flight anyway because of similar issues you faced at LHR (no busses, extra waiting time, ...)
Some parts of my journey were carried out by Qantas and Cathay Pacific, the contrast between them and BA was very obvious on all aspects of flying. I feel bad for the people working at LHR and BA since they can only do their best but something is definately wrong, big time...
I normally never respond to video's but this time the resamblence to your expierence was so high I felt I needed to mention it, also for other travellers. Where possible I will avoid using BA and definately use other stopovers then LHR...
Now the fun part of taking this up with customer service and the "great online applications" they have starts.
The BA and Heathrow experience is so true! This is not out of the ordinary sadly..
Yep, B.A. is as 'overpriced' and poor value as one can get. Try Ryanair.....LOL ;-)
@@karmascotland8 the moment you compare BA with Ryanair, it tells the story
Think I must be lucky. Never had issues and fly a lot . You sure cannot Ryanair with any other airline. They are so bad it’s not funny . If you want to fly like cattle then yes book budget Ryanair
@@zj7396 Have I missed the point? Whom is comparing BA with Ryanair, pls?
Very good point about the call center: if you don’t get what you want from one agent try call again later and see if you get another. This has happened to me several times when having problems with bookings. Seems like some agents just can’t be bothered to help, or have just been yelled at by another caller and are not in the mood to help. Really is a case of who you get on the end of the line, its worth multiple attempts, especially with airline tickets that have such gray areas in booking rules and regulations
It makes me wonder how much call minutes did Nonstop Dan have to waste though…
Thank you so much for this video!! I am still waiting on my lost luggage claim with British Airways and I’m talking against a wall since a year… it helps a lot to know that I’m not alone with my bad experience on BA - even though I don’t want this to happen anyone else! Stay safe
You are absolutely correct. We flew into Heathrow with BA from JFK in February. On the flight there they left my luggage in NY and was supposed to be on the next flight to london, it took 2 days to arrive. When leaving London we were delayed at Heathrow for over 2 hours with no real explanation.
I have had similar. 90 minutes waiting for a airbridge after a flight bsck from China. Flights redirected from Heathrow to Gatwick then replacement bus "lost". Flight from Germany cancelled and available flight 2 days later.
Now I avoid Heathrow and BA.
Unbelievable !
This is a familiar story of late at LHR. I've had 2 nightmare scenarios there in the last couple of months. The real truth, is that there are severe staffing issues at BA & LHR.