SFO777

Comparable product?
Your friends should be eternally grateful that they were switched to a real airline.
I would have walked to the CX gate on hot coals to make that switch.

corporate-wage-slave

That seems a very fair assessment. We know that the service was completely full and that 1.3% of seats were out of service, so probably about a dozen people (I would guess, it may have been a lot more) had to be rebooked, and unfortunately the OP's family was selected. I smell no rats, these things happen, and in a way it was good they found out early in the process rather than when they got to the airport.

As for them not enjoying the experience so much, a big chunk of that is some travellers don't like any changes to their arrangements, they have a mindset as to what to expect and quite understandably they get upset when it all changes. However on an 11 hour service there would have been 5-8 hours of sleep on either service and so plenty of time to enjoy Cathay or BA's in-flight service.

The irony is this: I was on that service, I would have been very happy to accept an alternative service, I'm a regular flyer so I don't have an expectations mindset, but because of my status it would have been unlikely for them to approach me. Maybe BA should mark travellers like me on their fabulous computer system as "easily pleased and even easier to bribe".

heartybob

If you read the OP carefully you will see that it's the OP who thinks the customers (his/her friends) who were lied to, not the customers themselves.

billinghamn

So the key question being asked here is: Were BA correct when they said two seats were broken in F on BA26 on 24 Feb? As dutch_122 said: 6 broken seats (1F 5CW) but the flight was full in all classes. So sounds to me like BA weren't entirely truthful, but went with a simple explanation as to why the pax were moved to another carrier. I don't see there's any big issue with that.

What I am interested in is why these two pax were chosen to be moved to another carrier? Was it as simple as the broken seat was reserved by them? Or was it because they are not regular flyers with BA? Would BA ensure that their regular flyers stay on the BA flight, rather than being moved to a competitor flight?

QF32

How ironic....its ok for you to suggest BA is lying to you, but if its the other way around.....so should we treat your whole post with the contempt it deserves??

Flying Doctor

We won't know as to some extent things can be overridden but my understanding is rebooking like this and downgrades are determined using the same system which uses status and critically your CIV score. If you are travelling with someone else then I suspect, but do not know for sure, that the highest CIV score and status gets applied to everyone on the booking as generally you would try not to split people up.

Of course sometimes with Irrops there will be a quick fix and then one of the back room team will just do it and it might just have been CX had 2 seats left in F and there was a non status party of 2. Problem sorted in seconds. Much the same as some have occasionally had with double upgrades at the airport - just a quick fix to get BA out of a tight spot....

FD.

NickB

Bram's got a point, though: BA have a legal obligation to call for volunteers before booting somebody off a flight. It is not an optional extra that the airline might undertake when it thinks it is a good idea. It should be systematically built into SOP. That said, we do not know whether there was any attempt at trying to find volunteers.

NickB

You have not answered the question. The airline cannot help it if the passengers have erroneous beliefs. How do you deal with flat-earthers? Go along with their delusion?

DH188

A couple of years ago now, but I was beeped at the gate in SYD, given a new CW boarding pass and told my original seat was broken.
Boarded to find someone in that seat which, as it happened, worked perfectly (I mentioned it to him and he took it through all the motions).
It was no big deal, but it led me to suppose that 'broken seat' might simply be a convenience used to cover any number of possibilities.

irishguy28

You can't please all of the people all of the time (though I think many customers would be ecstatic at being sent over to CX to sample their F!).

As for what people believe....tsk. 46% of Americans believe the world is only 6,000 years old.

Flying Doctor

Although for most of us on here changing over to CX F would be no big deal (and some would argue a better F product) I can see how people could get upset. I used to do a lot of flying Dr work and often with elderly people who were not well travelled (barring package tours or where through every stage of the process they are guided). You have no idea how stressful just travelling on a standard scheduled airline is for them. Add to that connecting flights and all the rest and apoplexy results quite quickly. They often worried about bags not realising that you can through check baggage etc and even things which we know and take for granted are just a foreign world to them.

We should occasionally reflect on the fact that we are all well travelled on here and very well versed with getting around and navigating the vagaries of large airports. For most people an airport is a place of stress and horror and just general unpleasantness.....

FD.

HilFly

+1.

There is a big difference between this happening to one of our road warriors who fly a myriad of airlines, and who are used to taking changes in their stride, and 2 elderly, infrequent fliers for whom the familiarity of BA was probably important.

Lioneye

Calling it fifty seventeen doesn't count

Poxball

But if there was only 1 F seat broken, being told that 2 are broken is surely a Suidaen cake?

Call me old fashioned.....

bdmaus

I agree there are always genuine reasons for bumps / delays / inconvenience, but in my experience the reasons given to customers are often very different.

Usually just a white lie so to avoid having to explain things or causing undue anxiety to the customer - but on many occasions as I have received wildly differing explanations of the same situation from different staff - it now means I wonder whether I'm being told the actual truth or just what they want me to hear whenever anything out of the ordinary happens...

E.g. Flight on a flight from KEF-LGW - the incoming flight had arrived very early due to tailwind from LGW. We had barely sat down in the lounge when we were called out of the lounge to board an hour early.

Cabin crew told us the captain "hated" KEF and refused to spend any time there.

Captain's announcement (more plausible) was that he wanted to use the extra time gained from the tailwind to offset the longer return journey into the headwind, and since all pax were present and accounted for he decided to leave early.