musical

Flying Club Europe from MAD to LHR yesterday - arrived at the plane to discover it wasn't BA but an airline called Titan. No one had told us this in advance. Asked what was happening only to be told 'we're covering for BA because they're striking but don't worry, we're better than they are'.
The plane was old, carpet peeling away from the floor, food was (genuinely) inedible, seats frayed, overhead lockers in rows 1 and 2 filled with crew equipment. I was in 1C and am Gold.
I had, like an idiot, paid nearly £750 for 2 tix and felt pretty short changed.
Sent a DM on Twitter (having researched complaints here on FT - thank you!) and got a generic 'we're really sorry and hope you will accept our apology' response. I told them politely that I wouldn't and wanted to escalate. 2 hours later got a phone call from their 'social media team' saying the same thing. He assured me there was no compensation that could be offered but he would 'feed back' (ugh) my concerns. I asked to speak with a manager and he said he could try and see if one was available but that they would say exactly the same thing and there was really no point. He was absolutely insistent on this point. I said let's try anyway, spoke to someone very charming who was genuinely horrified (I had DM'd pictures of the state of the plane and the food which looked like some kind of alien afterbirth) and he gave me 9000 Avios and another (sincere) apology. Not sure if it's because I've a verified account with a decent number of followers and I imagine they wouldn't want those pics flying around social media or because I'm Gold and have four long distance J fares booked in the next 2 months, or maybe they'd offer it to anyone who called but regardless it's better than nothing.

Frustrating that at no stage (booking, pre-flight email, bag drop, lounge, boarding gate) were we told the airline had changed from BA. Equally frustrating that it had to go up three levels to get some kind of compensation.

Paid for Club and got something resembling a genuinely awful economy trip. Was I wrong for complaining? Anyone else experienced Titan? The irony is that we actually landed 20 minutes early - something that hasn't happened on a single BA flight in the last 12 months for me.

LCY8737

Titan is one of the usual companies that BA lease aircraft and crew from when they can't operate a flight on their own metal.

I've been on a few of them and find them OK. It's not like you get a stellar experience on BA proper these days. 9k avios for your complaint is definitely a very good result, I'm surprised you got anything.

710 77345

Not at all, the CAA tell BA they have to make it clear to passengers who the operating airline is but BA are not very good at following this. I guess your boarding pass didn't say 'Operated by Titan' on it?

If you find yourself on a service that has been swapped with a Titan plane, BA will let you switch flights or get a refund.

our_kid

Recommend My Flights App to help with information on aircraft swaps. As soon as I saw Titan I was changing itinerary!

ahmetdouas

9000 Avios is great. Good job!

Steve_ZA

Exactly this. Take a look at the FT thread about this fantastic tool: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ights-app.html

Also welcome to FT musical.

IFE Wizard

As posted above, Titan are a company that "wet lease" ( i.e. aircraft and crew) to airlines when they can't operate a flight on their own metal.

Interestingly they are the company that purchased one of the BA A318 aircraft that used to fly LCY-JFK. As I understand the interior of this aircraft will remain the same configuration of all business class seats.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk, and welcome to the BA forum musical, though I can add my regret about the circumstances that brought you here. Well done for persisting on the Avios, 10K Avios is just about the most Avios that Customer Relations will hand out, and personally I think that's a fair recompense: you effectively have a free flight on a short sector, or a free UuA on a longer Europe sector. That seems fair to me, but you have to reach your own conclusion on that. Just because BA offer a particular outcome does not mean you have to accept it, there are ways to escalate the matter under your control.

I've done half a dozen Titan flights in the last 3 years or so. Their aircraft are indeed somewhat geriatric, but benefit from relatively good leg/knee room. It's by no means the worst fleet of aircraft going around Europe, even focusing on just the better class of airlines out there.

710 77345 is quite right to point out that you should have been told sooner and the system does allow you to move to another flight, some people fly BA specifically to be on a BA aircraft (e.g. safety fears) and BA facilitates that. But I've also had a recent experience where I wasn't told of a Qatar switch and only found out when I turned at the airbridge to come across an unsettling sea of maroon.

I hope we will see more of you here.

herbertgoon

Sorry to hijack, and also sorry you had a bad experience.

Just got to Madrid having flown a Titan substitute this morning. I have to say my experience was much better. More leg room, service just as good as a "good club europe" plus IFE over wifi. In addition I can now add the 757 to planes flown (that I remember).

I was fairly impressed!

megaloman

9000 avios - I guess that's for 2? It's pretty good result I'd say.

A couple of years back our flight FRA-LCY got subbed for Jota Airlines - my partner twitted BA and we got 3000 avios each. As an avgeek I was delighted to be flying an airline I have never flown before, but my partner is quite anxious about flying and any change (equipment swap, wet leased aircraft) doesn't help!

Paralytic

Its a sign of the times that 9000 Avios is regarded as a good result. I remember the days where anything under 10000 Avios for would have been scoffed at for even the most minor of issues. To be fair, service recover was over-generous back then.

Concerto

What's Titan like in Economy? Is it the same rubbish service as BA?

One airline that has regularly subbed in airlines that nobody has ever heard of is airberlin. Guess there won't be much more of that in the future.

DELLAS

I have to agree I was on a Titan B757 a few months back. Very comfortable and clean aircraft with great crew. Also loved the IFE over Wifi. ^

subject2load

Couldn't agree more !

9K Avios is an amazing result in BA's world of minimal (which very often equates to zero) redress of any sort.

Rarely comes without a battle of course. As the OP says : "....... frustrating that it had to go up three levels to get some kind of compensation".

gcuk

This issue comes up periodically when BA wet lease Titan aircraft. My recollection of opinion on those threads, and my experience, is that I have no issue with Titan. I'd be happy with a Titan substitution.