Hi, some of you may remember me from my denied boarding / unsuitable seat downgrade / disability saga a little over a year ago. For anyone hoping for an update, unfortunately there is nothing new to tell about that and I still haven’t been compensated.

As a result of that awful experience and feeling pretty traumatised by the whole thing and the appalling customer service response I received, I avoided flying BA again for the last year.

Unfortunately I needed to get back to SFO recently and BA had a well priced flight, so I made the regrettable choice of giving them a second chance. After all, most flights go ok, don’t they?!

So, now to today, I just flew into Heathrow on the delayed BA284. This flight was a nightmare all round for lots of people, not just myself, due to both the delay, being overbooked and the fact that a problem at SFO means they have misplaced some of the bags (mine included). Apparently our luggage might turn up, but they have no idea where it currently is, or where and when it might appear.

I filed a claim in the baggage hall for lost or delayed luggage, so hopefully it will get sorted out, but I am posting here in the hope that someone might have advice about potential compensation. As I understand it, if my bag never turns up I can make a claim (up to £1000?) and I could also claim on travel insurance, but I am wondering about things I need right away. For example can I buy a new toothbrush etc. and get BA to refund these costs. Does the fact that it may have been due to a technical problem at SFO change the liability? I can imagine BA trying to claim it wasn’t their fault so they don’t have to pay? Any advice much appreciated.

I am also planning to put in a complaint about the failure of the wheelchair service at both ends (SFO and Heathrow). BA staff at both specifically advised me to do this. I do know that wheelchair assistance is contracted by the airport, so this part isn’t BAs fault, but perhaps if they know there is systemic failure they could put alternative checks in place or put pressure on the airports?

At SFO, if the flight had not had been delayed I would have missed the flight due to lack of a wheelchair to get to the gate.

I arrived at the airport (already checked in) 3 hours before the flight was scheduled to leave, and didn’t manage to get to the gate until after the flight was scheduled to take off. I had to walk myself through security as they said at the bag checkin that no wheelchairs were available (even though it was booked months ago to be there).

I made it to the lounge and the very kind BA employee on the desk started making calls trying to get someone to bring a wheelchair to take me and another passenger in the lounge to the gate. She pointed out to me when I left that I should consider it an hour and a quarter unreasonable delay, as this was the time between when she thought a chair should definitely be there to take me from lounge to gate to make the flight and when it actually arrived. I am not expecting compensation for this, I am just writing about it here to publicise the failure of the system. The experience was stressful as obviously I was very worried that I was going to not be able to board due to disability yet again!

At Heathrow there were also no wheelchairs at the gate. There were 10 people on the flight with wheelchair assistance booked and only one Heathrow employee came to do this! He had an electric cart that seats 5 people plus driver, but no wheelchairs at all, so the flight attendants had to help us up the bridge. He then eventually abandoned us in some seats near the baggage claim area and said someone else would come help us at some point. There was an elderly wheelchair user travelling on her own and she was visibly upset and scared that we would be forgotten and left there. I think this may well have happened if I hadn’t managed to find a BA crew member who then went to get help.

As you can imagine this lead to a lot of waiting and I didn’t get to the baggage carousel for several hours, at which point I discovered my bag was lost!

On a positive note, the crew on my flight were absolutely lovely! Very friendly, helpful and kind. So the flight itself was a generally positive experience.

Thank you for reading all of this far too long post. Writing it down helped me feel a bit better about the whole thing and as a BA staff member said to me, it is important to tell people about these bad experiences as wider awareness can hopefully lead to changes being made.