HarryHolden68

I am flying BA almost every week for the next 3 months. Mostly short haul, mostly leisure flights.

Along with Mrs Harry, we decided on a destination, looked at the schedules, chose flights and made arrangements. These arrangements are generally the purpose of the trip, be it meeting up with friends, attending concerts or seeing somewhere new (or old). For the third week in row, BA have come along and trashed the carefully made plans with flight cancellations. Most of the time they do not even bother automatically rebooking you leaving you to do the work. When they do, they do not change you to the flight on the closest departure time, but some random guess. Carefully made plans, car hire, hotels are all merrily thrown into chaos with no empathy from BA.

The third in a month and latest cancellation is LHR-ABZ to see a concert at TECA in May. Originally, flights were booked for an early afternoon arrival but these were changed in January to a 09:20 departure. Not too bad I suppose although we will be early to see friends for lunch in Stonehaven. Today, that was cancelled and the only suitable alternative all day to Aberdeen was 07:05, with the next departure at 16:05. Nothing for 9 hours through the day. A 5am alarm in order to get to Aberdeen for a concert that evening. Two hours later, the 11:20 return to LHR the following morning is cancelled and automatically rebooked onto the 06:45. A 5am alarm after a concert - thanks BA. At the moment, I have changed it to the 09:45, until that is undoubtedly cancelled. That evening we are travelling onto JNB on an involuntarily downgraded 3-class 777 in lieu of the original 380. On separate tickets, I am apprehensive about the next E-Mail urinating on those plans too.

I know this is a "my story" rant about 2 passengers and a few flights and most posters will probably gloss over it, perhaps with a "doesn't affect me". But I read earlier about @Globalist having a lunch in Paris messed up. No doubt many thousands of people are having their carefully made plans thrown to the dogs by the ongoing cancellations. No consideration of consequential costs like hotels, connecting trains, car hire and parking. And yet, the media has gone quiet, the leadership team are absent and there is no indication as to when the chaos will end. In fact, according to BA, there is no acknowledgement that they are wrecking their customers plans day after day. It's almost like they have forgotten what they do for a living.

I will not be making another BA short haul booking until the leadership team at BA realise that their self-inflicted damage has meant they are unable to service their schedule. It is a disastrous PR exercise that is sending future bookings to their competitors. The leadership team really do need to come out and say something meaningful about their strategy for restoring consumer confidence in BA's ability to function as an airline, because at the moment, they do not.

Door5L

Valid points but the news and social media have been pitching the issues facing BA for a few months now. Travel experts expect the BA disruption to continue well into the summer peak season. I have a Greece trip booked on BA later this summer but apart from that I would be booking with other carriers. Customers have choices but brand loyalty makes people become slightly stuck, too. Has the golden age of flying and getting a decent service now gone? Probably.

dcmike

I have a flight to EDI in June and wondering the same thing - all of the cancellations and the connection in LHR just seems like it's made to end up in disaster. I wanted to fly BA, but now I am wondering why I just didn't book on LH/OS.

HIDDY

Unless I've missed something I'd say that's fair comment.

makin'miles

It’s pretty clear more than two years into COVID, BA continue to schedule and sell more flights than they ever plan to operate.

Back in 2020, I understand. At this point, I question the ethics of it, on top of the cost it’s having in their operations - including call centres.

Globalist

but why does it seem that BA is particularly hard hit? I am flying with various airlines (QR and IB) in the next week but the sh*tshow BA is providing is the best.. it is amazing.. no one does a sh*tshow like BA 😀.

Globalist

Geordie405

I have to agree with you HarryHolden68 that it's week after week after week of plans being thrown into disarray. It's not just a BA problem though. My Sunday morning routine is making coffee and then going through all my AA and AS bookings to see what's been trashed that week. It's called living the dream apparently

I have an AS booking, made in February, that has had a change literally every single week since I made it with the exception of yesterday. Some changes have just been to the flight number or perhaps a five minute adjustment to departure / arrival. However, three have been such that I have had to phone up and have the whole itinerary put back together. AS doesn't allow you to see what the changes are in situations like this. They simply say that a change has been made that requires agent intervention. So you have to look at Matrix / AS / Google to try and figure out what's been hosed and what you can do about it.

I had a booking made a week past Friday with AA that went to pot on the Sunday when AA made their schedule changes. One half of the booking was booked via an OTA (my biggest mistake ever; I really should know better) and I cannot be bothered trying to fix that given my experience on the phone with them earlier in the week. The other half was with AA and they were really great in getting the sectors put back to how I wanted them. However, it's time spent on the phone when I could really be doing other things.

Last Christmas we had plans with BA but the fact that they were only operating two flights a day to NCL made things really difficult to plan. We didn't want a 10-hour layover in LHR thank you very much.

I suppose with the odd exception people aren't flying just for the hell of it. Flying is a mode of transportation, with published schedules that people should be able to rely on. People do have plans - whether it be concerts, lunch, visiting friends and family. The constant inability to plan with any degree of even modest certainty has to be hurting BA. We have a European trip planned for later in the year (off to see The Cure play in concert in Vienna, as well as seeing friends) and, so far at least, the itinerary has stuck. Touch wood it continues that way but only time will tell.

Geordie405

Maybe that's something to add to the "What are BA doing well?" thread

abraxias

I've noticed that on Apple News for the past god-only-knows-how-many days there's always been a headline story called "List of BA flights cancelled today". At first I thought it was just an old story being displayed but then noticed the published date changed every day too.

HIDDY

As long as people keep giving them money they'll be happy to take it.

Dave Noble

That you keep using them explains why. When flights were cancelled , why not just cancel and take a different airline? Easyjet does London to Aberdeen for example

If you have been downgraded to JNB, why not cancel and book with another airline ?

BA is not the only airline out there.

Ba is just one company out there - if is is not meeting your needs, then surely just pick another

PUCCI GALORE

I have read the rather dramatically phrased post by the OP. It is extremely frustrating trying to deal with all of these cancellations and the havoc to one’s plans however these are the realities of the times. I read of a complete meltdown over at KLM this past week. Whilst two wrongs do not make a right it does give one a broader perspective.

Ultimately if you are having your plans constantly trashed by BA, then it is clearly time to go and have them trashed by another carrier. Or not as the case may be. There are trains as well if all else fails at least to,Aberdeen. Whilst clearly it is no fault of the OP, it may be best to just voucher up and fly with others. Clearly it is the OP’s money rather than some company’s. All of this is not going to be fixed overnight, there are years of Cruz Cheeseparing to undo. Where I running British Airways (probably is just as well if I am not) my first priority would be to get a personal motivated. I think we all work very hard and have been taken great advantage of. This is coming home to roost in sickness rates at least. I am not making excuses and can assure or concern that I’ve been just as inconvenienced by them and AA. Every day when expect yet another email to say sorry we’ve cancelled your flight and frankly anyone who books non-refundable hotel rooms car hire these days is playing with fire. ff it works fine, but the risks are now much higher that it won’t.

I am afraid that for many it may be Goodbye Cruel Airline. For now.

Misco60

In the past two weeks I have booked three pretty expensive trips for other people - a trip to Florida for my sister, a city break for my niece and her boyfriend and a honeymoon trip for my nephew. In normal times I would have gone straight to ba.com and booked everything there, but I couldn't risk having any of these trips trashed by BA at the last minute and thus United, Swiss and Air Canada have benefited instead.

Of course, there is a chance of disruption on those other airlines too, but my expectation of BA is so low at the moment that I am actively avoiding booking with them. It's a sad state of affairs.

choosethedrew

It’s hard admitting that you’re in a toxic relationship, I certainly struggled. But now I have accepted it’s time for a trial separation and have found the most pleasing of cooks, bartenders and furniture makers. I’m not too proud to go back though, I give my former lover 18 months to clean up their act. In the meantime, I am sure they are pining terribly for me

konagirl2

I do understand how frustrating the constant cancellations are. We have chosen to drive 7+ hours extra each way on our US holiday in May rather than deal with AA's constant messing with domestic flight time tables. And it is more infuriating that BA appear to be scheduling flights that they clearly cannot run, in bad faith, to take our cash. But as others have noted, we have to mean what we say when we complain, rather than just getting frustrated. When BA cancel a flight take the opportunity to get a full refund and re-book another way.

I would also note that we are still in the middle of the global pandemic. I know people want to get back to what was normal two years ago, but the reality is the labour market is completely different and a big proportion of people are going to be off work with illness for some time yet. So disruption should be considered the norm. Honestly, even before covid I wouldn't have thought that booking a concert in Aberdeen followed by an F flight to JNB the next day on separate tickets wasn't without some risk. But as others have said, there are always options, other airlines, train, even one-way car hire if you need (or drive yourselves both ways). As a society we have become very used to instant and convenient travel. But please consider that things are not (and may never be) back to the 'before times'.