Purim

I think this is a referendum of customer expectations of BA and what BA feel they can get away with. May be less so of the posters on this forum, but it is very possible that many folk choose to fly BA based on their reputation. That BA are safe to fly, will look after you and even might make you feel good about flying the flag. These folks might be aware of some cost cutting, but they are still expecting good hot food in LH Y and regular drinks. It goes without saying that these same folks trust BA to get to them to their destinations and if stuff happens that is out of the ordinary, expect BA will look after them in the meantime.

But the reality is far different and we see BA often doing the minimum for these folks, which is disappointing because it is these folks that need the most help. There are good tips on this thread from experienced posters about how to handle these situations - because these experienced travelers understand the gaps and ineffectiveness of BA customer service and the flaws in IRROPS care generally. Those who provide such insight and tips should not be flagellated for doing so.

The OP's description of the events are well written and without hyperbole. And the OP post makes very clear - as we can all agree - that BA are sadly deficient. What is depressing is that no one is surprised.

Personally, I find the OP's post miserable reading since I had begun to get the warm and fuzzies about BA in the last few weeks. The F Wing, ground staff and FA's seem to be happier and more customer service orientated recently. So, while it is great for me and many on this board that BA is taking care of its elites at the moment, the OP makes very clear that such care does not extend to all, and sadly not to those who expect the most from BA and are most ill-equipped to handle travel adversity.

warakorn

What the BA staff did, is straight from the Alex Cruz playbook.

1) Announce: "no more hotel rooms!"
2) 80% of the pax will believe it (though its a lie, esp in big london) and sleep on the airport floor.
3) BA has to pay zero for hotel accomodation for pax sleeping on the floor.
4) Pax even pay for the bus LGW-LHR themselves
5) Mission accomplished. Alex Cruz can report to WW: "Again, I managed to increase profits last quarter."

A lot of LCC and even so-called legacy carriers operate like that in IRROPS.

FTers know the drill. Book your own room, claim it later and escalate (eg a claim agency) if BA refuses to pay up.
In reality, however, only 5% of pax will do so.

So sad - BA will refuse most (justified) claims. The problem is that many pax will think "BA won't pay, its bad luck" and believe it - like BA is the government.

schrodingerdog

I disagree.

Most of LCC or legacy carriers will book you a hotel, transfers and rebook you in another flight. They will try not to pay EU261 (weather, extraordinary circunstances, Donald Trump messing around etc), they may refuse to book you in another carrier, they may pay a crapy hotel. But they don't leave 250+ people in London on their own.

Ancient Observer

I disagree.

Ezy left a planeful going to Rome in Departures at lgw with zero help.

There was no announcement. One minute we were told to wait for the Gate number, about 30 mins before scheduled departure, the overhead signs just read "Cancelled".

Nothing whatsoever from Ezy, who of course, had checked us in and knew we were airside.

Not even a person. Nothing. No duty of anything. No documents abot EU rules.

We only got out of Departures by pointing out to Security that we were there.

It took Ezy 3 hours to find our bags, and they only lifted a finger because we descended on their check-in locations once Security had let us out of airside.

All airlines have it within them to be mean, stupid and quite horrible to slf.

LostAntipod

+1 ^

nallison

Awww shucks, you guys

KeaneJohn

Credit where credit is due, the BA Holidays Duty office that is open 24 hours and you can use if you are on holiday or in the 48 hours before departure. They got me rebooked home from Cancun with several options (including staying an extra 2 nights at no extra cost and taking the direct flight to Gatwick) within 15 mins when flights home were cancelled by Hurricane Matthew last year so if you are travelling on a flight and hotel or flight and car inclusive booking save their number to your phone.

BRITINJAPAN3

Because many people travelling actually do not have a tablet or smartphone that can connect outside their home country, and believe it or not not everyone even has these toold avaialble

warakorn

Try Vueling, Ryanair, Easyjet, Germanwings ...

So, you managed to go through security in the other direction (airside -> landside)? I am very curious, because I thought that is not allowed, because of immigration checks.

http://www.gatwickairport.com/at-the...ng-at-gatwick/

That suggests to me that there may be intl-to-intl transfer pax at LGW. Hence, if security allows people to move from airside to landside, it means there is a loophole to circumvent British immigration control checkpoints.

DYKWIA

What would you expect them all to do? Stay airside for ever?

corporate-wage-slave

easyJet and Ryanair now have fairly good reputations on right of care. In the case of U2 if your flight is cancelled a special screen comes up on their app (which admittedly very few passengers use for some reason) which automatically books a hotel for you at their main airports, and rebooks the flight. Doesn't work everywhere and if there is a surge of cancellations then I'd imagine it will soon stop working. Hotel accommodation is in the Premier Inn level from these two airlines. Germanwings and Vueling have very poor reputations on EC261, across the board. Where they are all weak compared to BA is that they only rebook on to spare seats on their own aircraft, and if there is only one flight a day, on a flight which was already 98% full, you very soon get to the situation where the next available flight is 4 or more days away. They won't book connecting flights. Whereas BA typically has a much better capability to reroute direct, indirect, Joint Business, or even on alternative carriers.

The BA App also handles rebooking after an official cancellation, of the four times I've used it in the last 6 months it worked twice, I'm told there is focus to improve this area. With a 001 ticket it is almost certain that it would not have worked for the OP. BA's App doesn't do hotels and I've not heard any news on that.

Both LGW and LHR have a procedure for cancelled flights where passengers on the departure level are fed through a door, by HAL or GAL staff, down to the arrival level. It takes a while since the airline has to liaise with the airport to get the staff member ready and doors unlocked, and the airport then has to speak to the Chief Immigration Officer if there is a mass cancellation with potential visa issues. In the case of T5 they use gate 15, which goes from behind Customer Services right to the UK Border.

fransknorge

And do remember that not everybody knows roaming or can get it cheap. The advice "fire up Booking.com and book your own hotel" is nice for frequent travelers, not for the casual ones.

ahmetdouas

Yes even in 'the know' people struggle. I have the Three UK simcard so that means I have no roaming charges in most of Europe, US, etc., but even so it is throttled 3G abroad which is ridiculously slow.
I had a last minute Airbnb cancellation in SF and I went ballistic trying to book last minute on my phone another place to stay. The internet was pretty much hopeless, far too throttled, and unfortunately many airports have that as well on their free WiFi. So it was stressful to say the least, even without having to worry about roaming charges etc.

If you go to a country a lot, its best to get a local simcard, but in this case I doubt many passengers had that if they are not based in the UK.

FoxtrotOscar

I'm surprised that airlines don't make better use of technology to alleviate IRROPS inconvenience.

In a world of e-reservations how hard would it be to provide hotel vouchers via the BA app, for example.

DYKWIA

That's how EasyJet do it. You just accept the hotel offer within the app, and it then gives instructions on how to get there