orion_134

TL;DR - backpack and feet soaked in urine from a known soiled seat that was supposed to be vacant, BA tells me sorry for your luck, you get nothing.

Here's the Clif's notes: preboarded flight MCO-LGW. For 20 minutes, smelled urine, couldn't find source. Seat mates could clearly smell it, possibly attributing it to me. Took off shoes and placed feet on floor as we start to taxi, immediately squishing wet. Pick up backpack from under seat, also soaked. Quietly let crew know as they cross-check that I'd like a new seat when we get in the air, there's urine on the floor and I can wait until we get in the air to prevent a commotion. She insists I move so my two seat mates get up and they, with the rest of the cabin get to question why the dude smelling like pee can walk around while taxiing. They sit me further back in coach (I chose a forward seat to be away from the kids on the redeye), they put my bag in trash bag and we take off. Meanwhile I sit fuming, barefoot, holding my pee-socks.

We get in the air and they bring my bag back, and I ask for a smaller bag for my essentials and some socks from the business class kit, which they got for me. Crew did well for what I asked, offered nothing more than what I asked, and the team lead even tried to convince me that "someone may have spilled a drink", to which I calmly answered "not unless it was Bear Grylls drinking his own piss...it's all over me, lady, I know what it smells like". Another crew member tells me she was informed by the cleaning crew that there were soiled seats but was assured those seats were vacant. Guess not.

I tell BA via email what happened, they tell me along the lines of I'm sorry you X, that must have sucked, we're working on Y" and "I'm sorry you found your seat unsatisfactory, thank you come again". I respond reiterating that I didn't find it, it found me, and there is a good chance that I will be taking my 100k mile years of full-fare tickets to another airline based on the canned responses I get to dealing with someone else's bio caused from a BA miscommunication. They respond with basically "we're not giving you anything, it would be unfair to everyone else, we aren't making an exception".

Am I wrong? Is this to be expected in the airline biz? This has me wondering if it's even possible to avoid BA flying out of LHR and LGW...

Discuss.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome orion_134 to the BA forum, though the circumstances are rather less than fragant.

I would revert back to BA and ask them to either review the compensation or issue a deadlock letter, which you will then pursue with CEDR. More details on CEDR at the top and at the end of the EC261 thread, which is in the dashboard. Alternatively if you paid via a credit card issued in the UK you could decide on your own compensation and then work with the credit card company under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act to enforce it on BA (or rather jointly between the credit card company and BA). If you paid with Amex then they are fairly ruthless with BA about this.

I am a bit surprised that the CSM did not offer proactive compensation on the flight, that should have been what happened, and I am even more surprised that the two staff members didn't steer you down this line of approach.

I wouldn't bother with the 100k miles threat, it won't cut much ice on this forum let alone with BA! Treble that and you might, just might, be on to something.

crazyarmadillo

it sounds awful. Get back in touch with BA. Never heard anything like that - and it was straight after cleaning - no excuse.

It is definetely, tho, not the norm with BA.

Learn something new , every day.

Scots_Al

Sounds horrible, and no, I don't think BA's response is acceptable.

That said, if you were genuinely this charming to the crew, I can perhaps understand the CSM not feeling overwhelmed with the urge to pro-actively send in a report to customer services on your behalf.

orion_134

Thanks for the response. I didn't ask for compensation, but was also surprised they were so against it. I don't even know what would be "reasonable". I would be cool with matching my AA status, but not sure if I should go back suggesting compensation?

I'll look into the CEDR info, new to me.

mike&co

I tend to concur, to a degree. The OP was obviously pi**ed off with his predicament and sometimes you react accordingly especially when a member of the cabin crew is challenging your judgement. I can understand his frustration given it was a health and safety issue. That said, it's not what you say but how you say it - but I suppose that's open to interpretation. Question is - how did it actually get there ? And why was it not dealt with properly by the cleaning crew ? They obviously knew about it.

orbitmic

Sounds horrid. Unfortunately, I guess, welcome to the new BA customer service response. Of all the enhancements, i find this one of the most annoying.

Do you know if the CSM made a report? I think that this is one of the cases where, if you are sure that it was indeed urine, you might be best off addressing BA on twitter/facebook as the fear of shame might make them act.

I too would refrain from making threats about your 100k miles, the people reading your messages don't care and this will not help.

orion_134

I'm not sure if that's smothered in sarcasm. I was as cool as a cucumber and kept my voice down so as not to be "that American". I made no requests other than the essentials. Not sure how else I could've reeled it in...

lost_in_translation

CWS's response is a good one as it seems unlikely these days you'll get an adequate response from trying to deal with BA's Customer Service team in a non-direct manner.

I think anyone who is less than apoplectic in that situation is probably doing quite well.

Unfortunately, I believe they may have accidentally seated you in 'WTP' ...

Bodoing

How do you expect a person who has just been soaked in urine through no fault of his/her own, who has to ensure the smell/unpleasantness of it all for hours to come to react? Esp when someone had presumably paid thousands of $ for the privilege?

V10

We hear about catering being done on a round-trip basis out of London.

Are they now doing the same with the cleaning?

NWIFlyer

I think Scots_Al was suggesting the OP's very reasonable and measured response was taken by the CSM as an indication of satisfaction with the actions taken by the CC at the time and therefore no further report was required.

To me, that's an inappropriate course - I recall when MrsNWI's seat in Business had chewing gum stuck to it which she then got on her hand - so not as bad, clearly, but still a cleaning failure. Much like the OP, we quietly and discreetly drew it to the CSD's attention. He immediately cleaned it, apologised, and assured us he'd come back later with a compensation offer - which he kept his word on. For something as utterly disgusting as urine, I'd expect the CSM to be far more pro-active. The chewing gum issue was at at time when compensation was much more generous, so it does make you wonder just how much pressure CC are under to resist making reports now.

Scots_Al

To be clear, I agree wholeheartedly that BA's done badly here. My only point is that the OP may not have done himself any favours with a response that (however unintentially) is likely to come across as aggressive, regardless of tone of voice. Referring to someone as "lady" in that way just isn't the done thing (over here in any case), and dropping in pretty crude allusions and sweary words might have seemed to have had a degree of levity, but is liable to be taken badly.

Completely understandable that OP was unhappy, but given that he says that the crew were trying their best to help, if they took the same interpretation of his words that I did, I can equally understand that they would be put out.

MADPhil

For clarity, I assume that it was the seat in front of OP that was soaked (and possibly out of service) and that the staff had not realised that the floor was soaked and the seat was still dripping. Though you would think it would be hard to miss.

BA's response is appalling but not surprising these days.

simons1

Really disgusting, but as stated above sadly par for the course with BA.