uk1

Yes.

If you decided to seek complete justice for everything that is unfair that happens to you in your life, you will simply go barmy and get more and more grumpy as you get older. Like me.

Just be content that people who treat people badly tend to have a worst life than people who are nice and shrug and smile and push on. If you were now taking your very last gasp you'd choose to be doing something completely different than fretting about this. That is the acid test.

So just push on.

RFT72

The other passenger refused to let me past so I had to push past him. He then kicked me, I turned and asked if him if he had just kicked me. I am not sure exactly what he then said, at this point I was very shocked that I had just been kicked, but it involved a fair bit of swearing and general threats to my health and wellbeing!

I don't have any details of the other witness but clearly BA will do - he was sitting next to me.

corporate-wage-slave

All I can say is that in umpteen years of travelling with BA, on umpteen-plus flights, I've never ever seen anything remotely like this (a few drunk passengers yes, but that's a very different kettle of fish). From BA's point of view it's difficult to say anything more than sorry, and I have to say a refund is probably unrealistic - I don't know of any airline that would do that.

On the other hand I think I can be fairly confident in saying that this incident, upsetting for you as it clearly was, is most unlikely ever to happen again, no matter which airline you use. You certainly have the power - as any consumer has - to move your custom to other airlines, and there's no point spending it in ways that make you uncomfortable. However BA's fantastic range of destinations, and the professionalism of its crews and management, is such that it would be a pity to remove them from your travel plans just for an incident which is destined never to be repeated.

Sometimes stuff happens, not much you can do about that in advance, but how you let it impacts you is very much under your control.

I hope your future travels are far more pleasureable.

RFT72

BA response:

Thank you for your email dated 20 January about the experiences you had boarding your flight to . I appreciate your patience while I investigated this for you, and I am sorry for the delay.

I am concerned to hear about the incident you describe involving another passenger assaulting you before you boarded your flight. I have discussed this with the crew involved and I am very sorry this incident escalated into you and another passenger almost being offloaded from the flight.

Incidents like this are rare when flying with British Airways, and although this was very distressing for you and your family I am pleased you were able to resolve this with the Captain and be able to fly to Edinburgh. A report was filed at the time for an internal investigation to take place, and any appropriate action to be taken to prevent a situation like this happening in the future.

I know I cannot change the experience you had, but I hope you can accept my sincere apologies. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention and for giving me the opportunity to respond to your concerns. I hope we can welcome you on board in the future.

RFT72

Like the cut of your jib!

I am caught between pursuing this as Mrs RFT was very distressed and little RFT was also. if i don't try then i feel i may be doing them a disservice?

RFT72

A few years back on a BA domestic a very drunk passenger was sitting next to my wife, I was next to her. When the trolley came round he asked for booze and was given 4 miniatures. I was shocked and questioned the Cabin Crew. He requested more booze and got more. he then started to make lewd suggestions to my wife. She ignored him so he then started to stroke her leg. I complained loudly. The Snr Cabin crew member assessed the situation and removed the passenger to the back of the plane. he told us he should never have been allowed to fly far less have several miniatures put down in front of him. We did not complain as the Snt Cabin Crew Member was clearly so horrified and apologetic. He handled the situation well.

My point? Why do situations have to get so bad before people actually take you seriously? And - although not the same as what happened in Jan, it was a horrible situation you suggest that horrible situations do not happen twice.

It also sounds like your saying - "its ok for these things to happen as long as they are not repeated"?

RFT72

Agree 100%. But, should i therefore just put up with public humiliation?

Am finding all responses here very helpful and interesting.

Thank you.

uk1

Don't beat yourself up. Who is ever rational when they are upset? Upset people will follow this up until they see someone elses blood. If or when they see blood they say "why did I spend so much time and energy on this".

You are only saying that dropping this might do BA a disservice to help you further justify your effort. You have now convinced yourself (irrationally) that you are pursing this partly for altruism. In all honesty do you really care about helping BA ..... It is one of those "And another thing ...." self delusion arguments for justifying pursuing something when you really should give up.

It is easy for people like me to be rational and people like you who love their wife and have been treated badly to behave irrationally. If you had a choice between giving Mrs RFT a nice smoke salmon bagel (or something else she craves) or pursing this what would she choose you to do when she calms down?

On a more important topic, what will you and Mrs RFT be eating for lunch today?

RFT72

Mrs RFT has gone South. She will be having lunch courtesy of East Coast Mainline! I will be having chicken!

Littlegirl

Can I just clarify, was this CSM a member of the cabin crew or was this a ground staff member because we have Managers on the ground called CSMs and ones that fly as the SCCM who are also CSMs.

Was this a crew member or ground staff, just for clarity.

RFT72

The CSM was Ground Staff. The cabin crew were fantastic. They showed empathy and concern. My wife cried on one of their shoulders!

adam1uk

To me, that sounds as though there has been some kind of investigation, and some kind of conclusions have been reached. It's not just a copy and paste reply -- which is a step up from normal.

If you're really concerned about whether the staff member's attitude has been addressed in this process, it might be worth responding and asking for confirmation that they have been spoken to.

I agree with others that raising the issue of compensation makes it sound as though you're just complaining to get something.

orbitmic

Sorry but that throws a rather different light from what you originally said. Nobody 'has to push' past anyone else, and from your own description, it becomes a case of your having made the first physical contact. While you may have felt entitled to board in priority because BA staff telling you to do so because you were travelling with an infant, they did not strictly speaking give you license to push people. I'm not saying that you were the person at fault or that the other passenger was, I'm saying that based on what you describe, it is not as "obvious" a case as what you made it sound at first and neither us (FTers) nor the cabin crew could be expected to judge who was. If the discussion got heated, then the CSM threatening to disembark the passengers involved may well have been their attempt to defuse the situation. If you feel you were right and the other passenger was wrong, then indeed, as others have mentioned, there are courts that can hear from everyone and makes legally binding decisions. If you do not want to go that way (which I fully understand) then, you will need to accept that your case is not one where you are 'obviously' the victim because you were the one 'pushing past' first and I have no doubt that the other passenger would say that this constituted a physical assault in its own right.

Finally, in my view, you misrepresented BA's answer. They did not merely say that they were sorry, they said that they discussed it with the crew involved. In the incident I reported above, I would have been delighted for them to do so and what I resented was precisely that they did not (or at least certainly did not tell me that they would). To clarify, I don't think yours was a case where airline compensation would be a logical form of mitigation. Either the CSM did something wrong or they did not, but this is what the complaint should be about and they told you they discussed it with them. If you are unhappy with that resolution and think the CSM got off lightly, then you can make the complaint more formal and perhaps ask for a confrontation, but that should be a disciplinary issue (that in my view would lead nowhere as on the face of it, the CSM did not behave inappropriately in view of the fact you made the first physical contact with another passenger) and it should be clear that compensation is neither here nor there in this case.

uk1

Excellent.^

May I just observe that it is human nature to seek sympathy and support when we have been outraged and treated badly. People rarely post here and simply say that is what they are seeking. They say instead that they are seeking advice and clarity that they are being reasoable in their expectations. When they want someone to say "I am really, really, really sorry" they say they want to help the company improve. You received a response as good as you should reasonably expect. I think everyone would be sympathetic to what happened. Don't let others steal bits of you.

Onwards and upwards. Save her a bit of your chicken and mix some curry powder and salad cream and call it "Coronation Chicken For a Queen".

You know it makes sense.

SteveF

To be honest, you did not HAVE to push past him. You could have defused the situation by either walking away and boarding with everyone else, or politely asking a member of staff in a loud enough voice "is it time for those with young children to board now, please?".

I'm not saying that I wouldn't have done the same as you, especially when tired after a long haul flight, but I do think that walking away would have probably been the best thing to do. It's a bit like getting involved with a twit who thinks you've cut him up on the road; you can either apologise (even if you didn't) and let it go, or start a full blown road rage incident.

I'd forget it and move on. Fly BA, don't fly BA; I don't suppose they'll be bothered either way. I don't fly AF anymore because they cheesed me off once; they don't know or care, but I get a great deal of satisfaction from it.