Discrimination (Coronavirus?) on British Airways
 

I am a long time reader and very thankful for all that I have learned from this forum. I just wanted to share this story that has me both frustrated and perplexed.

To give some background, my wife and I are of East Asian descent and had our Canadian passports to fly on BA from Geneva to London last week. We got business class seats (Club Europe) as my wife hurt her lower back. We both had hand carries so we waited at the very front of the line for boarding to guarantee space in the overhead bin.

Once boarding started, we were told to step aside and not block the way of other passengers as our business class row would be downgraded to economy. We were not given any other explanation but listened to instructions and promptly moved out of the way and waited while everyone else went onboard (including all the other downgraded customers). We were specifically called out to not go on board until every passenger got on board. The reason the gate agent presented was that our names weren’t in the system. However, 10 minutes after all the passenger boarded besides us (including the standby passengers), the gate agent didn’t even check the computer and scanned our tickets then let us board the flight. While waiting I asked to speak to a manager and was told the manager was too busy. We felt like we were specifically profiled and held back as the only two people of Asian descent on the plane.

I’ve flown on other flights with BA and never faced anything like this so I feel that this is an isolated incident from that specific gate agent. I called BA’s customer service hotline today to mention this incident and got a response back of “what do you expect us to do about it.” This is very frustrating and it seems this Coronavirus paranoia is not that limited. Does BA have a policy against discrimination?

It sounds like a very confusing situation and I cannot explain why you were held back but I do know that BA is not a racist company.
The only thought is that due to the change of the configuration some seat changes were being actioned which needed to be updated before you could board.

It must have been very disappointing to have been downgraded, I feel lucky it has never happened to me. When it does it is for operational reasons, and I suspect they may have been moving the cabin divider forward perhaps, hence why you could not board.

Whatever, the reason, BA is a very culturally diverse carrier, with staff and crew from just about every creed, colour and persuasion possible, so I feel you can be confident you were not singled out unfairly.

The downgrade was disappointing but I understand it happens and to be honest it's not the point of the story. It's the fact that we were specifically isolated for no reason. Even with the configuration change, everyone else (affected by the downgrade) was allowed on first while we were held and told repeatedly that we wouldn't be allowed on until the last. The response back from customer service was also confusing. I figured there would be more of a "we will look into this action".

You need to contact BA - if you haven't already done so- and request the appropriate reimbursement for the downgrade.

The wiki in this post outlines what you are entitled to and advises how to claim it

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...61-2004-a.html

Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum orange1, but I'm really sorry to hear of your experience here. I am particularly disappointed that you were not given a clear explanation as to what was going on.

I very much doubt it was an act of discrimination for the simple reason that GVA is a big station for BA and they will be well used to handling Asian passengers, indeed passengers from many other parts of the world. BA's handling agency at GVA has a large number of Asians working for them too, you may have come across some in the lounge, it's the same company that deals with the gate. They are fairly brusque at the gate, they do enforce priority boarding there, whereas at many other places they are far more relaxed. GVA isn't a place that I can see getting too worked up about COVID-19 either, it's not in the spotlight by any stretch of the imagination.

Not many flights had their CE configurations amended today, I suspect only a handful, and it rarely happens. It has become a feature of the recent 3 weeks of winter storms, the last time it happened was in August 2109 on 6 flights. So you were particularly unlucky there. The need to shuffle people in FLY, the main gate application from 4 across to 6 across seating would take a few minutes, but normally it is done in advance. It's possible they had to do some last minute rejigging that led to your delay.

As to Customer Relations' response, it does sound a bit inept, I doubt it was intended to sound like that, but in a sense perhaps you do want to reflect on what they could do to put it right. I wouldn't focus on discrimination unless you have clear evidence of this, but you can certainly explain you didn't have a business class experience and therefore would like the difference between EuroTraveller and Club Europe to be refunded to you. You could do some sums to be even more clear what you are looking for. This is best handled by the webform, by all means reach out if you need help with working this out.

Welcome again to the forum, you had a bad experience but I can say with absolute certainty that this isn't typical or normal for BA, and I will raise it with the airport manager - who I know well - when I next get an opportunity, if that in any way reassures you.

I am at a loss to understand why you think BA staff would hold you back unnecessarily, there was a reason I’m sure but I believe this would have been for operational reasons, as said above BA are a multi cultural company with many being from a East Asian decent.

Thank you for sharing this link. I also got a number and will call them but am not too concerned as I know this happens to many others.

Is club Europe not infinite ? They just move the divider back.

if that results in them overselling the flight then they would deny someone boarding and compensate accordingly surely ?

Perhaps this was during the time passengers were squeezed into a condensed CE six across, maybe Y was enlarged and downgrades occurred (for catering or whatever reason...)

BA cancelled a flight yesterday, and as you can imagine at this time of the year, the flights were fairly full. So what I suspect happened was the opposite: they seated everyone 6 a side, including CE, in order to get as many people on to the aircraft. Flights were also running rather late this morning - typically 1 hour or so - so they may have wanted to put people on late running but technically earlier services, so they could make their longhaul connections.

OP was “last week” corporate-wage-slave so think same scenario, but after storm Ciara

What’s the apparent Coronavirus link?

Not certain, but seems for the foreseeable there’s gonna be 4/5/6 threads started on the home page here about it :(

OP and wife are from Eastern Asia and they made an assumption the gate staff actions were based on that and some irrational fear over the virus.