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High-flying barrister, 41, and his family are removed from BA flight at Heathrow

High-flying barrister, 41, and his family are removed from BA flight at Heathrow

Old Mar 3, 2022, 1:37 am
  #421  
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Originally Posted by ThatT1Feeling
I'd be interested to know what GDPR rule has been breached here - I don't believe that the nanny has been personally identified, have they?
Giving her name or not is actually entirely irrelevant, and anonymity is breached if anyone could reconstruct the identity of a person. If I mention that the Prime Minister of a Government of a country by the Channel with messy blonde hair (or a certain neighbour of mine who is often very loud when she is in the corridors) has done x and y, I cannot claim that what I am saying is anonymous just because I do not spell his/her name as such. In exactly the same way, referring to someone as the nanny of person x (named) means that her identity can easily be guessed by a number of people (it doesn't need to be everyone, even 10 people, even just her own family would be enough). So it would break GDPR obligations for an airline to give information about "the nanny"'s ticket (which in fact is why BA as such has not done so, but unfortunately for them, if some of their employees do, they are responsible).
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Old Mar 3, 2022, 4:07 am
  #422  
 
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Originally Posted by Tobias-UK
And by disclosing this alleged data, BA has breached the GDPR.
Oh boy, that escalated quickly.

For the sake of clarity, the conversation I had with my mates was that them, having checked the logs, found no one was involuntarily downgraded on the flight where the disturbance allegedly took place. This, like upgrades, are events that leave a trace in the system. No such trace was there for the flight where this event should've taken place.

The logic jump is that if no one was downgraded, then no one was booked in club and then ended up in economy, and with that I infer that if the flight was the correct one, and if my mates know how to read the information, then the nanny wasn't booked in club. It's not like they found the ticket of Msr. Nanny and confirmed she was on a HBO fare, checked in 14B - as far as I know the nanny has never been named in public and, unless there was a comment on her booking to say "Her boss is xyz" there's no way in hell to link her up to the barrister if they were on two different bookings. Apologies for not having been clearer.

Now, from here to saying that "BA breached GDPR" is, in my opinion, a long shot. But then again, I'm not a lawyer and we've seen people who are lawyerly-minded launch a lawsuit against BA on why they didn't get their helicopter ride from NYC so what do I know.
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Old Mar 3, 2022, 4:16 am
  #423  
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Originally Posted by 13901
Oh boy, that escalated quickly.

For the sake of clarity, the conversation I had with my mates was that them, having checked the logs, found no one was involuntarily downgraded on the flight where the disturbance allegedly took place. This, like upgrades, are events that leave a trace in the system. No such trace was there for the flight where this event should've taken place.

The logic jump is that if no one was downgraded, then no one was booked in club and then ended up in economy, and with that I infer that if the flight was the correct one, and if my mates know how to read the information, then the nanny wasn't booked in club. It's not like they found the ticket of Msr. Nanny and confirmed she was on a HBO fare, checked in 14B - as far as I know the nanny has never been named in public and, unless there was a comment on her booking to say "Her boss is xyz" there's no way in hell to link her up to the barrister if they were on two different bookings. Apologies for not having been clearer.

Now, from here to saying that "BA breached GDPR" is, in my opinion, a long shot. But then again, I'm not a lawyer and we've seen people who are lawyerly-minded launch a lawsuit against BA on why they didn't get their helicopter ride from NYC so what do I know.
sounds to me that nanny could have been booked in ET and said barrister requested she be seated in the empty middle seat in club and when told not possible threw a wobbly as he could claim the middle seat was his as he paid for it!?
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Old Mar 3, 2022, 4:26 am
  #424  
 
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Originally Posted by fdem
sounds to me that nanny could have been booked in ET and said barrister requested she be seated in the empty middle seat in club and when told not possible threw a wobbly as he could claim the middle seat was his as he paid for it!?
It does indeed scream that point for sure!
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Old Mar 3, 2022, 5:06 am
  #425  
 
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Originally Posted by Schultzois
In my experience its not like BA cabin crew to get things so terribly wrong, but I will say that my last couple of pandemic flights showed crew who genuinely made me feel like I wasnt sure they could handle an emergency. Yelling at passengers, running up and down the aisles like nothing I had seen before, and together with a friend who had never before flown CW, I quietly told him that its not usually like this, and to keep quiet. We were both basically worried even to talk to several of the crew members. One or two were good, but there were some who had been downright rude from the beginning. The one who appeared from his uniform to be the most senior cabin crew was yelling at people and seemingly had lost all control. Id never seen something like that before, but did comment to my friend that probably he had unfortunately set the protocol for the rest of the crew.

This was not long after a number of services had been restored I chalked it up to crew who forgot their training or some such, and were also in an unfamiliar working condition. Its been awhile longer now, but we shall see how it all works out.
Is this due to Covid-related stress? I wonder if this is temporary or it's reflective of BA service nowadays...
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Old Mar 12, 2022, 6:59 am
  #426  
 
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Attaboy

Originally Posted by Tobias-UK
And by disclosing this alleged data, BA has breached the GDPR.
I like that im not the only one lobbing oil on this fire.
I dont think the nanny should have that she should go after ba in a big way. She is after all employed by a very smart very successful barrister, some may say the smartest barrister there ever was. Lol.
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Old Mar 12, 2022, 11:48 am
  #427  
 
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Originally Posted by marcopizzaiuolo
As recently proven, BA has been very happy to operate the whole of Club Europe cabin to full 3+3 which in turn means they can also accommodate lap infants (if you have travelled with a lap infant, I did both in ET and CW), you can often see consecutive rows of lap infants , which never made me suspect that some rows cannot accomodare this, so lets not make it an issue, because it was not.

to me a very important point is that BA has caused and may have made the matter worst by poor handling the complaint. The fact the the barrister may have had few extra drinks and thus reacted in a poor way is secondary to BA have caused and handled the complaint poorly.
Sorry but this is wrong - to say its a non issue. Aircraft vary in layout and some do not have an additional oxygen mask in every row. I dont know if this was an issue here or not but I do know that as a general principle it is incorrect to say every row on every BA aircraft can accommodate a lap infant.

I also think that ultimately this is the decision of the operating crew on the day. It is not for the passengers to dictate and, as ever, people have blind spots / unknown unknowns - the things you dont know that you dont know.

My personal take is that when youve pushed back the crew are performing safety related duties and whilst they should do so politely, they are not in customer service mode. They need you, for example, to sit down if you are told to sit down. And yes they do need you to comply because there are 4 of them, 1 of you and 100+ other members of the public.
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Old Mar 12, 2022, 6:10 pm
  #428  
 
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Originally Posted by marcopizzaiuolo
to me a very important point is that BA has caused and may have made the matter worst by poor handling the complaint. The fact the the barrister may have had few extra drinks and thus reacted in a poor way is secondary to BA have caused and handled the complaint poorly.
I'm curious, what specific actions by BA were incorrect and what in your view should they have done instead of those specific actions.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 3:59 am
  #429  
 
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Originally Posted by Midships
I'm curious, what specific actions by BA were incorrect and what in your view should they have done instead of those specific actions.
They challenged a barrister and didn't let them bully their way to a result dictated by the barristers whims - we all know this was wrong.

For those of you who have had a sense of humour bypass, the above is tongue in cheek.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 4:13 am
  #430  
 
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Originally Posted by marcopizzaiuolo

to me a very important point is that BA has caused and may have made the matter worst by poor handling the complaint. The fact the the barrister may have had few extra drinks and thus reacted in a poor way is secondary to BA have caused and handled the complaint poorly.
We don’t know yet that BA caused anything, there are mixed reports that either the nanny was downgraded or that the barrister couldn’t get her a free ad hoc upgrade to the middle seat. I think we have to wait for the facts.
I don’t know where to start with the few extra drinks defence - plenty of people have been removed from flights for getting mouthy after a few extra drinks, quite rightly in my opinion. I’m also curious what the client whose work he was planning to do on board would think about him tackling that after a few drinks. I certainly wouldn’t think he’d be worth his elevated fee in those circumstances.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 4:58 am
  #431  
 
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Originally Posted by Ladyfliestheredwhiteandblues
We dont know yet that BA caused anything, there are mixed reports that either the nanny was downgraded or that the barrister couldnt get her a free ad hoc upgrade to the middle seat. I think we have to wait for the facts.
I dont know where to start with the few extra drinks defence - plenty of people have been removed from flights for getting mouthy after a few extra drinks, quite rightly in my opinion. Im also curious what the client whose work he was planning to do on board would think about him tackling that after a few drinks. I certainly wouldnt think hed be worth his elevated fee in those circumstances.
As a matter of law it is a criminal offence to be drunk onboard an aeroplane. There is no definition of what being drunk is, so the extra few drinks is a dangerous defence to use.


Once you start admitting that you abused the staff (swearing) and that a few drinks were involved, any justification is quickly overwhelmed.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 5:12 am
  #432  
 
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Indeed.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 5:20 am
  #433  
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Originally Posted by Waterhorse
As a matter of law it is a criminal offence to be drunk onboard an aeroplane. There is no definition of what being drunk is, so the extra few drinks is a dangerous defence to use.


Once you start admitting that you abused the staff (swearing) and that a few drinks were involved, any justification is quickly overwhelmed.
What evidence is there that the QC had been drinking? The only mention of alcohol I recall reading has been from contributors here who were not on board that particular aircraft.

Whilst there is no precise medical definition there is a plethora of case law out there that helps define what being drunk actually means. From what has been reported, I cannot see if that threshold has been met.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 6:04 am
  #434  
 
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I was just replying to marcopizzaiuolo. Like all the other contributors on here neither they nor I know exactly what went on.
It will probably all come out eventually. Maybe Mr Banner was wronged but we do at least have an eye witness account of him throwing his BA card at an FA’s face. If true, and this came from the parents of an FTer on that flight, then he should have been offloaded.
I await the full facts.
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Old Mar 13, 2022, 6:54 am
  #435  
 
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Originally Posted by Ladyfliestheredwhiteandblues
Im also curious what the client whose work he was planning to do on board would think about him tackling that after a few drinks. I certainly wouldnt think hed be worth his elevated fee in those circumstances.
Perhaps he was going to catch up on time recording so his clerk could get some fee notes out?
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