I've tried to avoid flying BA out of LYS as much as possible ever since they moved it to T1, but now that it is moved to T3, I gave it a try. What a disaster! There are no longer any BA employees at LYS! They have outsourced it all to people who don't give a damn about BA or their passengers. Plus BA won't pay for fast track for business class passengers at LYS.

Myself and many people who were the very first to check in yesterday found ourselves in a horrible queue at security and immigration. We checked in two hours early, and the flight left more than 20 minutes late, but still we only had 5 minutes in the Club. Long lines are to be expected at this time of year, but what made it impossible was that the agents for other airlines, namely Tunis Air and Turkish Air, held back the BA passengers until all the passengers for Monastir and Istanbul had passed. There was no BA agent present to look after the BA passengers. I was telling people to ignore the other airline agents as they have absolutely zero authority to block your access to the French National Police passport check booths. However British reserve kept them in line, fuming and complaining, but not taking any action. When I finally made it to the head of the queue I ignored the Tunis air guy and walked up to the immigration check and of course the police don't care about airline queue management. A number of BA passengers were elderly and had limited mobility, but they had to stand in the two hour queue and wait while other airline staff moved their passengers directly ahead of the queue. The people who were moving ahead of us were people who arrived very late at the airport and should have simply missed their flight. Instead everyone else was held up so they could board first.

When we finally boarded the plane (most everyone in business class had at least enough time to chug down a healthy glass of gin or vodka in the club. That was some serious power drinking in a 5 minute spell!) everyone complained bitterly to the first BA employees we met. I realized of course that the cabin crew couldn't do anything about the situation except write up a report. Which they did in great length as they heard a lot of complaints. The captain offered his apologies too and told everyone onboard to go to BA.com and write BA customer relations! I think BA is going to hear about this one.

It's a classic case of poorly managed outsourcing hurting your corporate image. Many of us have joked about BA going LCC, but when Tunis Air beat you, you really need to look in the mirror and decide what kind of airline you want to be.

And yes it is at least partly the fault of the French police for only staffing two out of the four booths, but had BA staff been present it all would have been managed much better.