rickyftb07

I can’t quite believe I am writing this, especially as we were in club world (business) and had a baby with us, but here I am.

The point of this post is to ask your opinions on next course of action. I am still unsure what to do. Whether I go straight to CAA (I’m in the uk), a solicitor, arbitration, the media or wait for BA to take action.

we were recently on a red eye back from Doha. Doha is currently in Ramadan and no alcohol anywhere except lounges and onboard.

it’s important to mention I work in travel and have access to a GDS system which gives me insight into seat maps and availability In more depth than sites like expert flyer would. Anyway, up until a few hours before flight I could see 6 empty seats in business including one which was crossed out due to being out of order. I decided to move myself next to a window and left my partner with baby in the bassinet seats. I did this because seats on the old club world are brilliant if in a middle 2 and get the back row 4. This meant my Mrs and baby could sleep next to each other full flight and I could sit by the window on my own as I struggle to sleep. Where as they will be out before take off. At this stage and the flight being at low capacity I was confident there would be empty seats and my lap baby could have his own seat next to my partner.

Upon check in, BA bumped 6 off duty flight attendants to business. Meaning the cabin was now full. We weren’t bothered because they were going straight to sleep anyway.
The issues started when one of the cabin crew was absolutely hammered. Falling everywhere, slurring, etc. Of course she happened to sit next to my wife and baby.

I was putting my bags away and setting seat up. When I turned back around I could see Mrs and baby in the lie flat position already at Pre take off which is not permitted. The off duty FA sitting next to her got an ID out and said it’s okay she’s crew. My partner just looked at me and said “it’s okay we going sleep”.

I did the same in my seat. I woke 2 hours later to her and the baby in tears asking me to swap seats. I got up to do so. The actual FA rushed around and took action immediately. They were furious at what the off duty one had been doing. They moved another off duty fa who was next to me sleeping to be next to the drunken one.
they apologised and put my Mrs and baby into the broken seat next to me. This was a relief just to get them away from the drunk.

it turns out the drunk had not left them alone for nearly 3 hours. Trying to pour champagne into my Mrs mouth. Spilling alcohol over her and the baby. Playing with her seat controls, adjusting her body, placing Half chewed food onto my partners chest while the babies head was there sleeping. Spilling alcohol over their clothes and babies iPad. Pressing the buttons on her screen and lots of other things.

My partner had a 4 hour drive back home and got 0 sleep. My baby is now sick with what we suspect is impetigo. Of course I can’t pin the illness on her actions but still worth mentioning.
Not only did we not experience business as we should, we literally put up with hell for half the flight.

As I work with BA I often meet their sales managers and senior management. I would rather give them the chance to rectify this than potentially damage a working relationship.
the problem is I really don’t know what I want nor what I can ask for. I holiday 4/5 times a year. The max avios I have seen given out is around 120k. But I feel that doesn’t even come close to cutting it for the danger my child and wife were put in.

what would you do?

Sigwx

Completely unacceptable behaviour by the crew member concerned from the sounds of it, especially if on ‘duty travel’ and a ‘POSCAB’. I’d complain at the highest levels and given your description I’m sure you’d be backed by BA’s management and treated appropriately given the circumstances.

SKT-DK

Wow…! I think I have never heard anything like this!

I would say you should complain to the highest levels at BA. I think going to the CAA would only work if you have details of the person in question, sadly.
I would recommend to write a very concise summary of the incident at the beginning of your complaint, so you do not lead with a long story.

proscale

There are very few situations where getting max compensation PLUS the guilty party held accountable is called for and your situation definitely calls for it.

Swanhunter

Good lord. Hindsight is 20:20 vision but that is a situation where I would have demanded to speak to the Captain, and ensured the SCCM took copious notes.

crazy8534

That sounds like an awful experience.

Write to BA and explain clearly what happened from the point of view of your family. Sorry to hear about your child’s impetigo but I would say that is one thing that isn’t relevant in this case and may cloud your other, very relevant, concerns.

I think you would need to have a clear idea of what you want out of this. If it were me I would be most interested to hear that BA were going to take action to prevent a similar occurrence in the future, perhaps by a disciplinary process with the staff member involved. BA would undertake an investigation that you hope would be fair, including receiving information from the on-duty staff. Just one caution from me in that the behaviour you describe is so unusual as to raise the question as to whether there might have been something else going on such as an acute mental health crisis or a reaction between alcohol and medication- I only say because these are the things BA would need to investigate.

If it is compensation then, as you have alluded to, it is unlikely that even a large amount of avios is going to make you feel made whole. I would just see what is offered and take things from there.

I hope you all feel recovered from your ordeal soon.

KARFA

Following on from swanhunter’s comments, In these situations would it not be expected that the SCCM would submit a report, and have ensured they had the affected passenger details so ba can pro-actively get their comments?

TabTraveller

I’m sorry to read about your wife’s experience.

As you will know, lots of people who are not BA staff have access to staff travel so it is possible that the individual was not a BA employee.

Is there a reason why your wife didn’t immediately raise this with the IFM? I can’t see circumstances where any one of the behaviours you describe would not lead to the call bell being pressed immediately and the offending passenger being told to stop or being moved.

orbitmic

My intuitive reaction is that you probably shouldn’t do anything but your wife should. From your own description, you didn’t experience/witness anything directly (I’m sure that if you had you would have at a minimum proposed to swap seats with your wife and baby) and second hand accounts will invariably be a lot less precise, valuable and powerful than first hand.

it seems this was handled poorly onboard and issues could have been defused much earlier but of course no point in replaying the game. At this stage I would encourage your wife to write to ba, in her own name and with as precise an account as possible. If you want, once she has done so and you have a case reference, you could mention to your ba contact that your wife had a flight from hell and here is her complaint reference. In my view, your taking more of an ownership of the issue than that will merely confuse things as none of your experience is direct whilst here is.

im not sure why you are thinking of the caa. Are you concerned about the safety breaches (eg being told to go bed mode before take off etc)? It’s most definitely wrong indeed but obviously the pax are on the wrong side of the fence too on that one so that could be counter productive. If you mean drunkenness of off duty crew i don’t know what caa rules are on that front so this could of course be relevant. As for solicitors that’s a different route and focus entirely. Here too, if they are approached, my sense is they will want to speak to your wife, not to you though.

ScruttonStreet

While I don’t disagree with the rest of your post, the OP stated the individual involved showed them their ID.

TabTraveller

Yes but I’d be impressed if the OP’s wife could tell the difference between airline issued IDs at a glance. They look pretty similar. The OP has not said that it was a BA ID or BA crew although this was implied.

HFHFFlyer

I’m afraid what you’ve described is a capital offence on the part of the CC member.

She needs to be fired for gross misconduct.

rickyftb07

Definitely staff. Was known to on duty FA and had ID. Was also in the same circle as the other off duty staff. They were all arguing with her.

wife is not confrontational. Was trying to sleep and dosing off for nearly 2 hours whilst this all happened.

she initially asked cabin crew if she could move to premium economy for more room. Not letting on what was happening.
only when she approached me to swap seats did cabin crew see she was in tears and realise what had been going on.

I have taken control of the complaint simply because I know what to say and how to word things. When we go through the proper channels I can of course get her to do it and I’ll just tidy it up.

also to add. We did complain to ifm who gave us a bottle of champagne and couldn’t do enough for us after this. They were really embarrassed and visibly angry at the off duty FA.

bisonrav

Yeah, this seems to fall into the category of gross misconduct. It does need to be investigated by BA under disciplinary processes. You won't necessarily get a record of the outcome, but you would hope appropriate disciplinary action would be taken. If this were a normal revenue passenger they would likely be arrested on arrival and probably banned from further travel with BA, these appear serious issues of harassment.

I hate to say this, but drinking on staff travel may be turning into a bit of a problem. Most of us will have seen off duty staff being plied with drinks onboard, in one case recently I saw what appeared to be these drinks being taken back by the off duty member back to others in the back, and things became increasingly raucous. The job isn't well paid, I don't think many of us would want perks to be curtailed or removed, but when the level of drinking and often very noisy chat in the galley gets past a certain point it crosses the line. So maybe a solution would be to prohibit anyone travelling on staff travel from being served any alcohol at all. I believe there are already some conduct rules, and this would be an obvious and easy one to add. And yes, I know it affects people traveling on holiday and having a glass of wine or G&T, and that staff do pay for transport too, but that's in the nature of solutions to problems caused by people who go too far. This shouldn't be affecting "paying" customers.

Thankfully the really serious incidents are very unusual.

DYKWIA

It sounds terrible, but you lost any sympathy from me at the above. Rather than trying to get the situation rectified, you just seem to be after compensation.