It wasn’t, it’s fair to say, the best of weeks for British Airways: a catastrophic systems failure on one of the busiest weekends of the year, which blighted the travel plans of 75,000 passengers, followed by an avalanche of compensation claims and questions about both its IT capabilities and its cost-cutting ethos. We asked readers of our weekly newsletter for their views on the airline — and boy, did they respond. Hundreds of comments were sent in, with 55% of those surveyed saying they would never fly with BA again. Many voiced concern that last weekend’s shambles was symptomatic of a wider malaise at a carrier that once billed itself as “the world’s favourite airline”.
Emma Plumtree described her “ordeal” queuing at JFK airport, in New York, all night last Saturday. “False hope was really the only thing that was consistently given to the BA passengers,” she said. “The lack of data and information exchange was appalling.” Alison Williams faced a 22½-hour delay when her flight from Corfu was cancelled, and spent the night in a “grotty” hotel courtesy of BA. “What really epitomised how low customer service has sunk was that BA insisted on flogging its overpriced food and drinks to tired and hungry passengers on the replacement flight home,” she said.
Another reader, John Wyatt, said: “In fairness, a systems failure can hit any company with a complex system. What is unforgivable is the total lack of meaningful discussions with customers. The saying is that it takes years to build a reputation and only seconds to lose one.” Yvonne Truscott concurred, saying simply: “BA used to be the world’s favourite airline. Now it’s a joke.”
Readers cited the “gutting” of the airline’s loyalty scheme and an erosion of on-board perks as evidence of what they felt was a longer-term decline — with BA increasingly resembling a low-cost carrier in all but reduced fares. “Smaller seats, less legroom, no free drinks, expensive sandwiches. BA stands for Budget Airline,” Mr D Rodney wrote. Gordon Thompson said: “BA has stripped away the quality that made it our respected national airline. I’m ashamed of it.”
Derrick Wrenn couldn’t resist a little schadenfreude. “BA’s patronising and smug approach to looking after customers has long irritated me,” he said. “It rather pleases me that it got caught in its own doings.” Peter Thomson claimed that the airline was living off past glories. “BA has been trading on its reputation for the past five or six years,” he said. “It’s now become a last resort.” Nearly 600 votes were cast in our poll — which asked the simple question “Would you still fly with BA?”— and 55% said they would book only with other airlines in the future. The remaining 45% were either unsure or said they felt BA deserved another chance.
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Some of this loyalty stemmed from sympathy for the airline’s staff. “Frontline staff have been hung out to dry by [the carrier’s chief executive] Alex Cruz and management,” Geraldine Courtney said. Andrew Moore added: “BA staff take a lot of grief from both management and customers. They are in an unenviable position.” John Sapsford, who takes 60 BA flights a year, said: “I think most staff are as sick to death of the budget mentality the board has imposed as the passengers.”
Yet your comments also revealed a deep-seated affection for the troubled airline, and a hope that its reputation can be restored. “It is sad to see some of the US carriers getting ahead when setting BA’s basics right again would easily put it back to preferred status,” said Steven Waterhouse. And there was this plea from Peter Hardaker: “Learn from mistakes, reappraise your customer relationships, make this a new start and put customers first — because we still believe in you.”
In the battle for the skies, it seems customer loyalty remains a powerful force. Figures from the price-comparison website Cheapflights show that a third of its users still search based on their favourite airlines — and only about 20% actually choose the cheapest fare. Phil Bloomfield at Cheapflights said: “Airline loyalty is a bit like airline food these days. It’ll cost you, you don’t get much for your investment and it generally leaves a bad taste in the mouth. But suggestions that consumers today are wholly mercenary in their approach to air travel are premature.”
Reader Lesley Draffen certainly isn’t. She “wouldn’t dream” of flying with anyone except BA — a loyalty forged by the airline’s treatment of her son and his fellow soldiers returning from a tour of duty in Afghanistan a decade ago. “They were treated like kings and, 10 years on, those lads are still talking about it,” she said. “It is a great pity what happened last weekend, but it ought to be seen for what it is: not the worst thing in the world. Frustrating, annoying and upsetting — but so, sometimes, is life.”
BA said: “We know customers feel let down and we sincerely apologise. Our communication systems were affected by the outage, so we were unable to communicate as normal.” It said the airline continued to “target investment in areas where we know our customers value it most”, including in-flight wi-fi, new and refurbished planes and its loyalty scheme.
