indianwells

I think David Cameron hit the nail on the head when he called it "Twatter".

BahrainLad

Oh here we go, I can see the beginning of the "stop the world, I want to get off" cries.

Twitter is just a new communication tool, with an interesting broadcast side to it.

I am sure some people once said the same thing about email, or websites, or even web-based discussion forums.

CarolynUK

Just let Stelios have her - and good riddance.

How stupid to think that she and her friend should get lounge passes for relatively short (albeit irritating) delay.... Does she not appreciate how airline lounges work? If she wants a lounge, they aren't free, you get into them by paying to fly a premium cabin, paying to fly to earn status, or paying out to get into a public lounge.... They are never free!

I'm afraid I don' get twitter either, but in any case it's not really the forum to deal with serious issues, if you want proper responses, use more formal methods of communication.

quitecontrary

For a former journalist she's not very well informed. Most people would know that there is little that can be done about weather related delays.
They happen to all airlines - Easyjet is not exempt! A friend flying back from LGW to BFS was delayed fron 14.55 to 17.30 on Sunday - last time they were delayed overnight and had to spend the night on the airport floor - EZY told them that there were no hotels available!
Anyway Kate - if you want to try the lounge buy a Business class ticket next time - you'll be amazed at how good the BA lounges are. Or stick with EZY.

srbrenna

I'm rather put out by her comments about us and her refusal to join in on FT. I think she should join immediately. Not only will she receive good advice about how to complain, whether it is worth complaining but also the correct channels to use. And much more!

In addition to this she can learn how to collect Avios so that she can sit in the snobbish areas. For DUS she could have used a reward flight saver which would have been cheaper than EZY.

lawrenson1

Hi,

I don't use Twitter, but I do have to agree with her on one point.

If you offer communications methods such as email/twitter/phone, for a worldwide business which is open 24/7, then you should man them 24/7 as well.

Cheers,
Karen

RobDBA

I totally disagree, it is up to the airline to decide which communication channels will be manned at which time - I would not expect to get an answer to a an email within a few hours at night time any more than I'd expect an answer on twitter on a Sunday. Twitter is a nice extra tool for communicating but it is not meant to be there to resolve any problem at any time. What did she think twitter was going to do about it? We're air traffic control going to be shaken into action because someone was being pretentious on twitter?

MNManInKen

As someone who has dealt with lots of journalists, I'd beg to differ. The majority are pretty clueless and mostly just write up articles by copy and pasting from press releases.

I have come across some really good journalists, almost all old school BBC ones, who properly research their topic and clearly have done the home work, but I can't say they are the majority.

As for the blog: I'm afraid hers comes in the 98% category of entirely pointless blogs that seem to be only there to make the blogger feel important. There are some really good blogs out there, but not many, and they never talk about the author's life IMHO.

vla

Basic rule: Twitter is absolutely common communication medium. Thus it sacrifices quite a lot, in favour of providing quite a lot.


1. When something happens in your local area and you don't know what's going on, search for a #hashtag. Want to know why #Paddington is closed? Search for it. Or why there's #m25chaos?

2. When you want to know what others are doing, look for the trending topics. These you can change by country, and city, or keep it universal. Gossip galore for you to search and learn.

3. When you want to tap, a bit, into the human psyche, imagine what would make a good #hashtag and search for it. #ginandtonic #airturbulence #crossword -- you get the idea

4. You don't have to register for a Twitter account to use Twitter.

5. Don't register for a Twitter account unless you really want do say something there.

6. If you would post something on Twitter that you would later regret, delete it and ignore it.

7. Or not. No such thing as bad publicity.

8. Until there is.

9. If you want to play the full-on Twitter game, the idea is, eventually, to have people follow you. Yes you can post what you had for breakfast (I had two poached eggs and sparkling water). No, nobody cares.

10. You can post photos and other articles people might want to see using URL shorteners.


Thus, more or less, the "tools" once available to journalists, PR types and indeed government are now available to all and sundry -- beyond that, I believe the phrase is "YMMV"...

Globaliser

"Interesting broadcast side" is an interesting euphemism for its worst qualities: its attractiveness to narcissists and blackmailers.

People will, of course, hold different opinions about whether either of those descriptions applies to this journalist.

BicesterTerrier

I have just read the comments on the end of the blog, I agree it is a shame that kate won't join us, we could pretty much guarantee her a guesting in to any lounge at LHR any time she flies.

It's a shame I will have to spend time with a narrow minded FT'er as and when I manage to be at LHR the same time as someone with a CCR/GF guesting spot. Assuming of course I do not shun anyone.

at240

At the heart of all of this, which most of you are choosing to ignore amidst your hearty back-slapping, is a legitimate criticism about semi-automated responses to complaints -- and we've heard it before.

I agree that she expressed herself very poorly (and came across as rather arrogant by peppering it with silly demands for compensation), but the BA response is pretty poor too -- and let's face it, the BA response would have been the same regardless of how she expressed herself.

And it's a bit ironic, really. If BA could have been bothered to respond properly (and explain the real reasons for the delay and thus defend itself), she might not have felt the need to get so uppity. And the result might even have been a post about BA's excellent complaint handling...

Littlegirl

I think this whole thread just serves to show what kind of idiotic complaints BA have to deal with and waste hours of their time on replying to.

I often read news articles about aviation incidents that are totally incorrect and now I think I can see why!

It often makes me wonder if articles about other professions are also inacurate biassed and incorrect.

ian001

^

The passenger had a purchased a flight because she actually needed to be somewhere for a reason (that is after all why most people actually fly; not to spend hours in a lounge or take photographs of the inflight catering) and had a reasonable expectation of getting there at least approximately on time and was understandably annoyed at the delays to both sectors (her knowledge about airport operations is irrelevant, most people after all don't purchase goods and services knowing every nuance of the supplier's operation).

All BA needed to do was respond to her actual questions (which should have taken too much thought) and give a reason for the delay and the issue would probably have gone away. If a passenger is frustrated (whether justified or not) then the sense of not actually being listened to will only escalate the problem.

As for those who mock her for writing for The Guardian, if it wasn't for the dogged determination of The Guardian (for which it was heavily criticised by a number of other newspapers at the time), News International would still be running with the line that phone hacking was confined to a "single rogue reporter" and Murdoch would still have a strangehold over British politics.

And as for Twitter, I find it certainly has its uses and BA has a place on there but this is a salutory example that people do have different expectations of it. There have been instances before where reasonably high profile users have asked questions of BA during disruption and found (and publicised the fact) that they got far better answers from the public at large than BA.

Globaliser

What was wrong with it? It's pretty much exactly the sort of thing I'd expect to get from any airline, train company, etc.