I recently experienced poor service on a BD C-class ticket. I would be grateful for any thoughts as to whether this is worth complaining about and if so, to whom I should adress my complaint? I was unable to check-in online or at the self-service machine, presumably because I had onward flights with SK. At check-in desk they were also unable to give me my SK boarding passes or check through my luggage to my final destination necessitating me a wait for luggage and a visit to flight connections centre at LHR. On board I sat in my seat and encountered a large lump of wet chewing gum under the armrest which was quite unpleasant. There were at least 4 flight crew being ferried to LHR occupying business seats; they were offered sandwiches first and by the time they arrived at me I had no choice. The sandwich available was unsuitable for dietary reasons so they offered me an alternative from the economy trolley. Given earlier threads on same issue I thought this was nice of them until they had the audacity to charge me 3.50 for it, not wanting a scene or the embarassment of returing it I just paid up. Arriving at LHR, we were let out a central door via a stairway so no priority deplaning for C Class this time. The bus took us to luggage reclaim which is outside secure area for connections so I needed to go through the outside underground walkway to T3 SK check-in followed by security all over again. Is this service cause for complaint or am I just overeacting to a series of small issues?

Where you on seperate tickets as that would explain why bmi could not check you through?

I used to travel on BD/SK tickets quite a lot. For some reason, only some of the time, I couldnt check in online for my bmi flights. No big deal - check in at the airport.

However, if you dare to try to check in on flysas.com, it always worked for their legs and you got the seat you wanted. However for some reason bmi, could no longer print a boarding pass for the sk leg. There was some weird stuff happening within the IT systems. However, back to the point, even with these difficulties, I never had to collect my bags when transitting in LHR - hence why I think you were maybe on seperate tickets?

I think you need to blame the dirty scrote who left the chewing gum there instead of bmi. What was wrong with using the sick bag or sticking it in with their rubbish?

Poor show on catering.. but whats new?

You would have had to go through security in T3 again anyway, even if connecting via FCC.

You had a series of small issues but you should certainly complain. Personally I would have hit the nuclear button a little earlier - specifically, the point when sandwiches were offered to positioning crew when my tray was still empty - but I know it isn't always possible at the time.

I presume you have the receipt for your economy catering and the ticket receipt for your business class itinerary?

Write to Customer Relations (the contact details are in the contacts section in the main sticky) and be clear about what you want: a refund of the �3.50 or a cash refund of the first sector of the ticket or an amount of Diamond Club miles or whatever.

Certainly write to Customer Relations, although don't expect an instantaneous response.

I've said before and I'll say again, BD are a grand little airline and overall they have been good to me. However it is issues like you describe with the onboard C-class service which need Lufthansa's attention urgently.

Bussing @ T1- It's Heathrow, bad luck
Check in- Poor show, but see it all the time at BHD. In fact, I overheard a conversation on exactly the same thing in the BHD Business lounge between the dragon and a C-Class pax who was rather frustrated that he could not get an SK onward BP for his tight connection at LHR, just wasn't happening and not for want of trying on the dragon's part either.

Actually, it's the bussing at T1 which is the most eye-popping. In particular the fact that domestic arrivals are bussed *outside* the secure zone. I haven't had a domestic bussing at T1 (only LGWN but that's another story), but does that happen often? If so, I would be very, very narked, especially if I had a short connection, or had bought duty free liquids or something. Yes, you need to get through security to get to T3, but the FCC is far more convenient and involves less walking

Hang on a sec... Why didn't they check your bags through? If it's the same ticket, they check through even if they can't print boarding passes. If it's not, then the policy on BD as with BA and many other airlines is very clear - no checking. And if your bags weren't checked through, then you would have had to exit the secure area anyway...

As for the sandwiches thing, tbh, I'm not normally that fussy, but offering to uniformed crew first is a serious no-no, and, if I remembered, I would name and shame the flight attendant in any complaint letter. IMHO, it should also be encumbent on the deadheading crew to point out that there are farepaying customers who need to be served first, so they would just as surely be at fault

One would have thought they would have told you beforehand that they would have to charge you for it.
Sad to see BMi stoop so low especially with a business class customer. Must be embarrassing for the crew I imagine. Although they should have offered you a choice first - if there was a choice in the first place that is. Regarding not checking your bags through it must have been because you were using separate tickets as jamesie_version1 explained.

Worth sending in a letter though I would say.

Bussing-in at LHR has been an issue for years and years, and varies with the timetable. I would imagine it will end when Terminal 1 eventually becomes mixed-gate a la T5 and there is no longer a need to switch aircraft between domestic from international stands. Of course the problem then becomes how to deal with arriving passengers in a part of the terminal that cannot separate them from departing pax, which would mean even more bussing-in unless the pier design was changed.

What is most extraordinary about the catering is that two failures occured: first, that the serving crew did not prioritise paid passengers, and second, that the positioning crew did not verify themselves that paid passengers had been served. I have never seen an employee sitting in short-haul business class fail to check, however briefly, that the rest of the cabin had been served. Basic courtesy.

Thanks to all for your interesting feedback. On the whole I think I was just unlucky to get a bad BD day which was probably not all off the airlines own making. Consequently I guess I'm just going to let it go as I agree BD is a relatively good airline; they have been good to me too and I have had no cause for complaint before this flight.

The check-in staff did spend some time trying to get me a boarding pass without success and I guess didn't check the bags for security reasons as a result. BD-SK are not the first and will not be the last pair of airlines with such difficulties. I was travelling on a single ticket but following comments from first reply I may have caused the problem myself as following the reservation I obtained the SK booking reference and logged into the flysas site.

With hindsight I think the bussing at LHR was caused by the aircraft. On that flight it was an a321 rather than the usual a319 on the GLA-LHR route. I'm now guessing they parked it at an international gate for an onward flight hence the need to bus us. I overlooked the point I would have to go out secure area in any case as my bags were not checked. Regarding bussing at T1, it was second time this happened to me in about a year. I cannot recall if the other flight was also BD or if it was BA prior to their move to T5. I agree it is a nuisance though, staying in secure area is much better.

The meal thing was not such a big deal, often i don't even eat on board. I was just a little taken aback by the experience although I guess I shouldn't have been surprised from previous threads.

The gum issue as suggested was a passenger problem , not BD problem.

Thanks again to all for your time and thoughts.

It is the latter, not the former. Aircraft size doesn't matter, but rather the next destination of the aircraft which are always parked on the stand relevant to their next departure. Sometimes this will mean domestic pax arriving on the international pier, sometimes international pax arriving on the domestic pier. Both require bussing.

The flipside is the aircraft being in the right place for departure meaning you are much less likely to be delayed on departure and almost never need bussing to the plane. Easy to forget that the bussing-in is done for a good reason.

If you happen to find yourself on a 321 on a domestic flight into LHR, it's likely this will be a mid-haul plane on a fill-in trip, so the chances of this being put on an international gate for its next flight is greater than for a 319.

It's a very big deal. What happened was unforgivable. Please contact them about this. Not wanting too much in the way of compensation is fine, that's your decision, but they still need ripping a new one, otherwise it'll keep happening.

I'd be surprised. I don't think the mid-haul A321s are used on domestics very often at all (if ever). Much more likely to be a short-haul A321 going on to PMI or VCE etc.

Be surprised then : the most recent one was G-MEDF doing a single LHR-GLA turn on 19 April.

G-MEDN did an EDI turn yesterday too.

Trouble is, if you don't make BD aware of these problems, they won't know to fix them. No point being complacent: it gives less reason to complain on future occasions.