Originally Posted by oscietra

So, let's count the number of errors in this travesty of an email:

1. Full stop at the end of the title of the email. Looked like one of those daft mistakes you see on the emails advising you of an error on your "BaNk Acount".

2. It's not dated so the references to yesterday and tomorrow have no context; especially important as presumably this will be going to members in different time zones.

3. Superfluous and condescending use of the phrase "As you will be aware" in the opening sentence.

4. Should read "which have swept" not "that have swept".

5. "As a valued customer, we wanted to explain what action we are taking to mitigate." makes no sense at all. Either "..to mitigate the situation..." or "in mitigation" but either way I don't really think these are mitigations, as all the bad things have already happened to the fullest extent possible. In my view (and I may be proven wrong on this) mitigations are things that happen concurrent to the actual events to reduce their seriousness/impact. So I don't think "mitigations" is the right word at all to describe this shutting of the stable-door after the reindeers have bolted .

6. Personally, I don't find the word "wanted" appropriate in an apology email in any context.

7. While not inherently incorrect, UK English generally writes dates in the format Saturday 18th December rather than "Saturday December 18". Maybe that's more of a personal preference, though.

8. "flight programme" should read "flying programme".

9. "We took this action early so we could immediately communicate with customers." Makes no sense - was this motivated by a desire to communicate immediately with customers (and note my correct ordering of the words..!), or by a desire to take action to avoid further disruption??

10. "proven the right call" is a car crash of a phrase. Shocking.

11. "Until late yesterday" this has no context as there is no date on the email, it is being sent out over the course of several hours and to multiple times zones. Be specific or just don't bother.

12. "the BAA" - say no more...

13. "to only running" = we have a slam dunk of a split infinitive!!

14. "one-third" should not be hyphenated. And for the benefit of most BAEC members not aware of the full extent of BA's flying programme, one third of what? Would it not be better to quantify the numbers of flights which actually flew vs. the normal amount, to give a sense of the scale of the achievement?

15. "it will take some days to return to normal" not certain of that phrase "some days" - again, be specific with a worst case scenario or it looks like you aren't in control of the situation.

16. "planes" - British Airways does not have any planes. It has aircraft.

17. Mentions BA.com had "three times its usual traffic" but WW mentioned 40 times usual traffic on youtube. Which is it? Just doesn't sound joined up, and undermines credibility.

18. "BA.com has three times its usual traffic" is in the wrong tense as the previous clause in the sentence mentioned "has been". Perhaps they missed a word out? "has received" would have been better, but it's still sloppy.

19. Bullet 4 contains a spelling error. It should read cancelling, not "canceling".

20. A really poor final sentence "We know how important it is for our customers to be with their friends or family at this time of year and please be assured that we will do everything possible to help them." Should read "friends and family", should not say we "will do everything" but rather "are doing everything", does "them' refer to the friends and family or the customers, just how exactly will we be helping the mysterious "them" (presumably to help them to complete their travel with British Airways)?

21. There is also a change of tone, whereas we are addressed initially as a "valued customer" and should therefore be addressed as part of the group of customers (i.e. use the word "you" when referring to customers) the "voice" moves to refer to customers as a disconnected "third party", which negates what is intended to be a personal tone into something more remote and distant; hardly the preferred intention.

So there it is - 21 points for improvement. Any others?

I appreciate the comms people must be pretty tired, but this is not the first time I have received a shoddy outbound comms email from a senior person at BA.

I know it will have been reviewed by a number of people, and has obviously been edited down to reduce its length, which could account for the missing words. But it's very poor that this wasn't properly proof read by someone who knew what they were doing, and millions will receive this in the name of WW, which cannot encourage credibility at a time when it much needed.

Summary: I don't think this was written by an person in possession of a decent education, and possibly not someone used to speaking UK English. Could have been an American.