TWCLAM

Bit of a gripe this one I am afraid but I met what I think was the most self absorbed, selfish & childish traveller I've come across in years yesterday ( I'm sure other members have worse stories but still). In the hopes you may find FT and use it as a place to gripe about BA's terrible treatment I just want to post this so you know what you caused with your behaviour yesterday.

You check in late and arrive late for pre boarding as you're with your children and your bags have to be gate checked because of space. This isn't acceptable for you of course and you strop to the CSM who goes out of their way to explain things to you but no that still isn't good enough. You demand you have your ipad for the 55 minute flight and decide to lie and tell the crew it's turned on ( we could all see it wasn't when you took it out your case!). Because you want your bags in the cabin you refuse to say which of your bags it's in. We then have to have air bridges reattached and containers unloaded for ground crew to hunt through them to find your apparently turned on ipad despite being told that the entire flight will be massively delayed because of this. You then accuse CC of doing things they clearly hadn't and attempted to twist words said to you.

Because YOU couldn't go without your ipad for under an hour there were 6 people on that flight connecting to JFK who will now be waiting at least 24 hours for their cases as they had to be rushed through LGW just to make their flight and even then that was only achieved as some strings were pulled to skip flight connections and get them rapidly screened & moved by an escort team to get them onboard on time even though their bags had no chance of making it with them( with only one LGW-JFK flight those 6 people would've lost an entire day of their holiday BECAUSE OF YOU!). I know this is the only way they made their flight because despite being on holiday myself with BA struggling to find a solution to get the poor innocent pax caught up in your selfish behaviour to FC, rechecked and to the gate on time myself and my partner made calls to security and operations at LGW to have that escort team in place within the airport and we moved them through the airport to the agreed meeting point ourselves as we took pity on the people whose vacations were about to be ruined because of your actions

NOTHING was done wrong by the ground handling agents or the crew as you repeatedly accused. It was YOUR personal disorganisation that was the issue. Suspecting you would've been straight on the phone to complain about BA and how they treated you I have taken the time to get the entire crews names, the GHA's names, phone BA and follow up with an email detailing exactly what happened so none of them risk getting a black mark against their names because you can't organise yourself like an adult( or go without your toys for an hour) you selfish cretinous creature. We'll also be following it up with a chat with the station manager for LGW so they know that the crew went above and beyond for you despite your behaviour.

UKTraveller4Fun

While it sounds like this individual was indeed a piece of work I must say I actually think the crew should have handled things better and simply informed them that their bags will be offloaded and transported on the next flight due to this switched on iPad.

My only other question would be was the passenger carrying more bags than their party was technically allowed by BA policy. If they actually had what they are allowed and BA create this expectation on their website and by allowing hand baggage only fares does some blame actually lie with BA.

Don't get me wrong it sounds like this person was a pain and self serving but did they actually want to do anything that BA advertise they are not allowed to do? People with children as far as I am aware don't have to prepare and actually many choose to board late as its easier to control children on an airplane for shorter amounts of time. If they turned up as boarding was closed or after the published gate close time then obviously that's another matter!

TWCLAM

He had a full size backpack on his back and his wife had two carry on bags so yes he was over allowance anyway( he'd be on three himself). The crew did all they could but with two small( toddler) children I think they were trying to avoid offloading one of the parents. His ipad wasn't turned on for the 1st ten mins of him standing at the front demanding his bags were in the cabin which is what he really wanted. For such an important item he didn't seem to know which case it was on and when they were both brought up to the door he kicked off yet again when he realised that his lies weren't going to get his cases in the cabin. The flight was full and when we arrived we heard the GHA's actively encouraging gate checking ( offer to preboard then a free drink which isn't one ive heard offered before myself). Accusations were made of GHA's trying to steal his bags, that the CSM was ignoring him oh the list goes on. Personally I would've kicked him off the flight just for his shouting and stropping but that's probably why I fly in rather than crew aircraft lol.

We were already installed onboard so can't legitimately speak for their arrival at gate time so I dont want to cast aspersions when I don't know.

Oh and forgot to say in initial post - If you're reading this and you were 1A then it was a pleasure to meet you ( we shared some jokes about said person)

DYKWIA

If only we had a DYKWIA thread...

lost_in_translation

Shameless self-promotion!

FlyerTalker39574

BAEC

I think OP meant BA 2761 and not BA 2671 😊

KeaneJohn

IAMORGAN

UKtravelbear

It was 51 minutes late.

Having a bad day is no excuse to affect other people.

It's a very say situation when you say that other people connecting isn't really anyone else's problem. There was a thread the other day about that on either the DL or AA Boards and the OP on that thread got a bad reaction. There will come a time when you are connecting and would be exasperated if other people's behaviour was delaying you and causing you a huge amount of inconvenience.

IMHO the CSD and then the Captain should have put their foot down a lot sooner and then if necessary got the Dutch Police involved. Yes the flight might have been delayed further but this passenger would have got the message about behaving badly.

ginger50

I am always so amazed at this sort of behaviour because I would be far too embarrassed to try even the smallest element of what this oaf was doing. You have to admire the staff for not reacting, if any of them are reading. I salute you.

FlyerTalker39574

V10

Difficult to know where to go with this one. Undoubtably the guy involved was an idiot of the very highest order (pity the children), but I'm not sure that the crew can overlook the issue of a device that is potentially not in the required flight safe mode being in the hold.

South London Bon Viveur

How strange that they decided to unload the aircraft to look for an Ipad?? Presumably that was the Captain's call. I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye (no criticism of the OP) but I find the whole thing very odd indeed. I take the point about flight safe mode made in the previous post, but there must be hundreds of flights a day leaving with switched on devices left in cases, so I cannot imagine it's that serious a safety concern (though am happy to be corrected). It just seems to me that unloading the a/c is a disproportionate response, given the knock on effect on other pax. Not criticising the crew at all though; it sounds like they handled a difficult situation as best as they could.

GrahamClarke

I was on a US internal AA flight a couple of years ago, near the front of the cabin. A late arriving passenger complained about having to check her bags due to lack of overhead locker space and then accused the CC of lying when there apparently was space. She demanded her bags back and started filming the "debate" on her iPhone. She was then kicked off the flight, even after starting to cry and offering to delete the footage.

While I think the AA crew's approach was heavy handed, it shows how tolerant BA staff are!