Paralytic

Whilst the OP obviously had an unfortunate series of events, and some not so great service from BA and it's providers, I think changing airline (and alliance) because of that is a bit over the top; another set of issue will eventually arise elsewhere, then where will they go? A HIDDY said, things do go wrong sometimes.

And I think its unfair of the OP to say they were lied to. More likely, the information was given to you in good faith, but that someone had been a bit optimistic along the way.

itsmeitisss

My wife used to work in a call centre and it's common practise for this announcement to be on the phone lines about 5 minutes before closing if there is a call queue longer than the amount of time left. It doesn't mean they have gone home, it means they are busy and unable to take more calls within the opening times of the call centre. The alternative is leaving you on hold and then your call being dropped, and then you getting the same message when you call back.

bernardd

Good evening Sir Colin. Sorry to see the organization you left behind has forgotten your famous quotation.

bernardd

One that gets me is crew pushing to the front of security lines.

LTN Phobia

I know what you're saying. I must admit MA didn't do too badly with my big disruption at BUD, although one disruption at AMS was not handled too well by their contractor - the contractors could not care less.

MA's own staff at BUD on the other hand worked hard to get me to my destination as quickly as they could, and booked me on about 3 different flights in case one went (what a difference from another airline which shall remain nameless as I do not want to let myself whinge any more - it's not BA) as the snow-induced major disruption left them uncertain as to which flights would go and which would not.

To save me queueing time and time again (I had already spent 2 hours in the queue at the time), they put me on multiple flights and told me to see which one went. I very much appreciated that.

While I think their standard in-flight services were pretty rubbish, and the fact that they threw everyone out of airside after flight cancellation wasn't great, I take my hat off to them for booking me on multiple flights.

So, yes, I agree, how an airline deals with things when they go wrong is really important to me. I see it as being more important in many ways than other aspects. In fact I have refused to fly on a few airlines due to very poor handling of things that went wrong, and the reverse also applies.

That, I do not mind. They usually have the officially-endorsed priority, they often have flight time limitations issues to deal with, and also, it may well be that someone's flight is delayed if they are delayed in the security queue. For pre-flight duties, I really do not mind if they get priority.

bernardd

Attributed to Sir Colin Marshall and taught the world over:

itsmeitisss

There's often a good reason for that, and many airports have crew specific security lines. The one that gets me is in T5 when at the lifts in T5B CC look you in the eye while pressing the close door button repeatedly. The least they could do is look away and pretend they haven't seen you!

bernardd

Doesn't a flight need both passengers & crew to depart? If they're delayed, aren't any passengers connecting off the same flight also delayed?

Once in a while it's OK for both passengers & crew to jump the line, but there are more than a few crew that do it routinely, apparently because they don't want to waste their precious time. Well, hello, what does that say about their attitude to the poor punters who pay their salary?

LTN Phobia

Passengers can be offloaded, but crew members can't, unless they are over-crewed, without ending up in a cancelled flight. So the crew members are more "important" in terms of operating the flights than passengers.

I do not think it is always the case that the crew simply do not want to waste their time. There may be some crew members who have the 'wrong' attitudes towards customers, but by and large many seem to prefer to put passengers first as long as it does not impact on the on-time departure of their flight. At many airports the staff members and crew members officially have the priority on some security lines, and I think that is fair enough if that's the case that they do get the priority.

In some cases, delayed by security, they may end up needing extra time for their pre-flight duties and end up delaying the flight, and then some passengers will complain about the delay. If the OTP is important, then I think we may need to live with their jumping the queue.

amaroo

It works. I received a txt upon arriving at MAD stating that a bag (in fact two) did not travel with me! This was mid Dec.

At the lost baggage counter IB staff had no idea where the bags were....after completing the paperwork we left for the hotel. About 15mins after leaving the airport I got a call from an EK agent asking why I hadn't collected my bags! Explained that we traveled BA she explained the bags flew EK - I gave her our reference No, she immediately reviewed and could see the claim.

The agent said she would take them straight over to IB and we should get them later that night.....we got them in the morning

The funny thing is that the two bags beat us to MAD as they travelled on EK with rush tags BNE-DXB-MAD.....we flew QF/BA BNE-SYD-BKK-LHR-MAD.

Can your bags be lost even if they beat you to your destination?

BTW, the stuff up with the bags was a QF problem out of BNE not a BA one....but I still got the txt, pretty impressive^

BahrainLad

I agree. They should be made to wait. If it delays the flight they're heading to, so what? After all, they are only serfs.

highpeaklad

Have you tried contacting YouFirst? They claim to be able to expedite delayed baggage.

trueblu

'Pushing to the front' sort of implies pushing people aside and/or looking officious whilst doing so -- I don't condone that. However, I think it is fair enough that crew get priority over all pax, including priority pax. If I was working as crew, I wouldn't want to spend/waste any extra time in the airport, and probably know pretty much how long (to the minute) it takes to get 'to work' on any given day. Even most vFF do spend a bit of time in the lounge etc.

I've been moved forward sometimes when I'm late for a connection, and that has been critical in my making it, and I've been grateful. Sometimes, I've not been given 'priority' in the same situation, and consequently missed my flight.

However, should a situation arise in a busy airport that so many crew come and 'move to the front' in such way that ordinairy pax are essentially left waiting in a stationary, but moving queue, then operationally something needs to be done. I have to say, I've never encountered such a situation.

tb

PS the YouFirst idea is a good one: but only if the pax is based in NA/UK, otherwise they don't help.

Genius1

Crew do not use the same security area or same lanes at most airports.

At Heathrow, all crew and staff at all terminals have a separate security search area.

And on arrival, there is a separate crew and staff immigration gate.

pointtaken

Very unfortunate for the OP. Based on a sample size of two I would rate BA's late baggage handling to be rather satisfactory.

I recently had a missing bag on my way to YYZ (via LHR) with BA and they handled the whole deal quite well. I was notified by the CSD before our arrival into YYZ that I would need to contact the baggage desk as "...there were some issues with your baggage, sir.". We landed and after immigration went to the counter which was totally empty. The lady proceeded to apologise for the delay and we proceeded to fill out some forms. After that I was given a £150 credit card and advised that this could be either used at any store or then at the ATM. After I got my mobile working, there were two text messages that my case had been opened and that the bag would be onboard BA92 the next day, which was due to land at 15:10. I did expect to have the bag in the evening the next day, but it was only at ten that night when I received a message saying my bags had left from the airport. As I was rather tired, I went to sleep and the next morning phoned reception about my bags and they were promptly delivered to my room.

This was quite a nice way of handling the situation in my opinion. It may also have helped that I was flying in CW.

The next time I was to go through the same deal was when returning to HEL some days later. My flights took me from YYZ to JFK and via LHR to HEL. Obviously this was a bit too much for my bag as it did not make the connecting flight in JFK (2h25min connecting time). This time I had to wait at the carousel until it stopped to realize I wasn't going to get my bag. Went to the counter and again filled out some paperwork, but this time didn't get any on the spot compensation as it was my return leg. Text messages confirmed by bag arriving the next day and it was delivered at around seven in the evening.

Still quite acceptable although with over two hours connection time I would have though my bag could make it... On both cases I also checked the status of my claim at ba.com/baggage although this was usually not as up to date as the information received by SMS.