corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum Martin John. Though the circumstances that brought you here were most annoying, nevertheless it's great to see you in this forum, and this is very much the right place to find out how to get better flights on BA. Welcome on board.

I can only agree with the other posts that once you are on a full aircraft there probably wasn't a lot that could be done. In these circumstances it is best to let the crew know before departure that you will have to offload. This tends to concentrate minds since in the case of BOS it can lead to very awkward procedures. In reality there would almost certainly be some airline staff on staff travel and they would be asked to switch flights, or the captain may take the pragmatic decision to get the cleaners back and accept a 30 minute delay. Once airborne then I'm not sure even compensation really makes up for a shoddy experience.

What is particularly unfortunate is that they seem to have loosen the customer service guidance, which was quite mean, to something more reasonable, this seems to have happened around Christmas. The trouble is that once BA say "our position won't change" they tend to mean it. You may have some potential under CEDR or MCOL, perhaps looking at the Consumer Rights Act. CEDR is dispute resolution process, I don't think I can recommend it for this particular case but it is supposed to cover broader customer relation failures. MCOL - Money Claim Online is the Small Claims court system. There is a thread on EC261 in the Dashboard which explains these processes (at this stage the 2017 thread is more populated) however to be clear, you don't have an EC261 case, it's just the mechanism that is useful. There is a separate and undeveloped thread in the Dashboard on the CRA.

For that you need to proceed with caution: anything directly flight related may be out of scope, and with it passenger discomfort / loss of enjoyment. You need to argue it from the perspective that this nuisance was already in place before you boarded and BA didn't rectify it before departure. If you complained before departure then you are in a much stronger position. Pragmatically, if you are going down this route, you may want to put in a relatively modest claim (say 10-20% of the sector cost) and make it clear you are prepared to compromise. CRA for all of us is new and BA won't want the CRA to get out of control from their perspective. I would ask that if you go down this route that you keep us informed as to progress, one of the reasons it's difficult to give advice is that very few people communicate their outcomes here.

Martin John

I agree they didn’t make him puke however, it was on the floor and my seat that he was sick and whilst they might not advert smell free flights surely basic hygiene comes in play. I certainly didn’t sign up for that horrendous journey. All I expected was a small token in terms of miles or something . I did complain as soon as we sat down before takeoff.

frank_poulankh

If the OP had offloaded himself, would BA have been obliged to find him a seat on another flight at their expense or would the OP have had to pay for a new ticket himself and seek reimbursement afterwards?

whimike

Your generalization of Americans is completely inappropriate and inaccurate. BTW, where did the OP claim to be American?

I agree, but once the airplane lands the airline has a duty to clean the aircraft appropriately so that the next passengers aren't negatively impacted. If they weren't able to clean to the point of removing the stench then they should have taken those seats out of service rather than expecting passengers to endure the odor.

I once flew in F on LX (Swiss) from ZRH to YUL. The guy sat across the aisle had constant incredibly foul smelling gas throughout the entire flight, to the point where I thought I was going to throw-up multiple times. A horrible experience especially in F. I didn't complain or ask for any compensation because it is was something outside the control of the airline, but I never would have paid for a Y seat, let alone an F seat, had I known what I was in for.

If I was the OP, and it was a smell I couldn't deal with, I would either offload myself or look for a solution such as putting down blankets or having the cabin crew get some fragrance to spray and try to mask the smell.

UKtravelbear

In my view no. It would have been similar to a passenger who simply changed their mind about flying. And if they then wanted to fly on another flight they would have to buy a new ticket. Why should BA reimburse when the passenger changes their mind (unless it is a refundable ticket of course)?

TBH OP was silly in writing to Alex Cruz before going down the normal customer services route. Whose above him? Well I guess Willie Walsh but I can imagine his reaction to getting such a letter!

OP what sort of compensation did you ask for / expected? I assume that if it was a reasonable request it would have likely been met but not if you asked for a full refund or a free flight.

I'm not saying this would have been a pleasant flight for the OP but people need to be realistic in terms of getting compensation.

TFFT

When I worked for a big credit card company in the UK we had several successful claims under Section 75 in very similar circumstances. One very similar to this was a PIA flight from LHR-ISB where the pax was sat next to a blocked toilet that had a very (very) unpleasant smell that they were forced to endure for the full flight; they got a partial refund (as they had paid for a return flight). Might have to push hard but another avenue for you to explore...

golfmad

I disagree. Under these circumstances I'm sure BA would have re-accommodated the passenger on a later service at no charge.

navylad

passy777

littlefish

Some sound advice upthread. As ever, its about trying to assess options when first encountering the issue .... and dealing as a separate exercise with the post-flight feedback and service recovery.
Anyway - "BA fail to adequately clean plane before next sector" is not a huge surprise.

Maybe a small query I can add. Would the regular BA long-haul flyers or our CC contributors here expect that seat / seat-pair to have been taken out of service?

Tobias-UK

I concur. In the circumstances reported the OP is entitled to be off loaded and be transported on an alternative flight without any additional cost.

710 77345

BA have happily ignored bad press in the larger circulation newspapers for sometime, and the furore over bed bugs and cleanliness suggests bad press isn't their number one concern.

It's easy to say you would offload yourself in the same situation, but you are indeed reliant on local goodwill at an outstation with outsourced staff, and even if BA do let you on another flight free of charge you don't know when the next flight with open seats will be, you may have to pay for your own food and accomodation and of course will be late for any UK commitments you have.

Kids are sick every day on BA flights, there's a well used procedure for cleaning with spare seat covers available - this should have been sorted on the ground before new passengers were allowed on board and is a cleaning failure.

I don't think a 5-10% refund of the fare paid is really appropriate (Ł25 cash is equivalent to an overnight transatlantic flight sat around someone else's sick ) - I'd be charging back half the fare to cover that leg of the journey, but of course everyone has different standards and expectations.

Ber2dca

Of course, BA is entirely responsible here. This didn't happen on the flight the OP was on, it happened on a previous flight. It's BA's business choice to minimize cleaning between flights to an absurd degree. If the company had any grace they'd at least accept that the savings generated by a lean operation are good enough to allow for the occasional payout to a customer.

Compensation should be seen as a marketing expense. Bad customer service generates bad PR, good customer service generates good PR.

ianwall

Once the doors are closed not much can be done, but if a similar incident was to happen in the future, what's best to do in practice to ensure the airline don't see it as a voluntary offload, leaving you stranded?

While on the ground, would asking the CSM/D to get the Turnaround Manager involved be best, and ensure a commitment to rebook is made before you leave the plane? C-W-S makes a good point about those on staff travel having to reshuffle / take a jump seat, as an alternative way to solve the problem, which guess they'd also have control over?

ahmetdouas

I'm sorry, but if the seat is not fit for purpose and there is no alternative BA not only has to put them on a later flight, but compensate them for Involuntary Denied Boarding!