British Airways kicked two lawyers off of a flight after an onboard dispute over their nanny upgrading to Club Europe, BA’s business class cabin for intra-European flights. And while the airline staff were technically correct, I actually see the point of the passengers here.
Charles Banner, his wife and two children – aged 1 and 4 – were traveling with their nanny from London Heatrow to Turin, Italy on BA2578. They bought five business class tickets. However BA had oversold the cabin and downgraded the nanny.
Apparently not realizing that British Airways Club Europe is just a coach seat with blocked middle and catering, they got on board and saw they had empty middle seats and wanted their nanny to sit in the row with the kids. He reports that when he asked a flight attendant if the nanny could take that empty middle – less than they’d paid for – they replied “You wish.”
He says if he’d known that the nanny wouldn’t be allowed to sit with them, he’d have changed to a later flight. But since he found out at the airport they were stuck, and moving the nanny to an empty middle seemed like a reasonable accommodation. Since he persisted, the plane – already taxiing out – returned to the gate to kick the family off.
According to British Airways, “We do not tolerate disruptive behaviour and the safety of our customers and crew is our top priority.”
Ultimately the flight was delayed an hour and a half, inconveniencing not just the family that got removed but everyone on the plane. (Fortunately for return passengers planning to connect onward at Heathrow, the aircraft usually spends 3 hours on the ground in Turin.) BA wasn’t wrong in the immediate instance, but:
- should have allowed the nanny to sit in a business middle seat since she had a purchased business ticket
- and the lawyer should have been willing to downgrade himself since regular coach since the seat is largely the same in back and the flight is short, his loss of productivity from the removal was greater than any loss of productivity inflight without the empty middle next to him
In other words, what happened here was the worst possible outcome for everyone. Perhaps the lawyer should have gamed this out better. But British Airways, by overbooking and downgrading a business class passenger, is most responsible. What do you think?
(HT: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
It is obvious that the airline was/is wrong. End of discussion.
This is awful customer service, they paid for the seat, we’re willing to accept worse terms than they paid for (using three seats instead of two) and we’re told last minute. BA is 100% in the wrong.
@Gary: The lawyer totally screwed this up. If he had explained the situation to the FA and, when told the nanny couldn’t sit in the ‘jump seat’, downgraded himself so the nanny could look after the children then he could have taken it up with BA HQ afterwards. That would likely have got him ex-gratia compensation.
So why cost the passengers some 1500 hrs (90 mins times 100 passengers)? The lawyer had a head size problem. Would Gary Leff have done that to a planeload of people over something so trivial? Of course not. This other guy IS different.
After getting the shaft from AA a few years ago they flew us to Madrid to connect to Venice on Iberia. Business was just coach with the middle seat blocked. After nearly 24 hours of travel we boarded the flight in Madrid on Iberia to Venice. The middle seat was empty and my wife and I wanted to sit together. I had her move to the middle seat and the flight attendant told us that this wasn’t allowed but the lady in the window seat indicated she was OK with it. We are not big people and did not infringe upon her space and with her approval the F/A let it go. It appears now that we are in a “do as I say” mode with airline F/A and there is no tolerance or sympathy. I only fly F/C now and that is like coach a few years ago. Traveling just sucks these days and I hate everything about it. Looking forward to road trips and changing hotels every day or two to get a fresh room. Our only international trips will be on carriers that offer good service. Domestic is only on a need to go basis. What a horrible state travel has become.
We’ve all had officious airline personnel insist on something we know is wrong. You state your case and hopefully have enough common sense to know when you’re defeated and take it up , as an earlier poster said, with HQ at a later date. The BA crew was stupid but the lawyer decided to descend to their level. As stated earlier, everyone lost, particularly the totally innocent other passengers on the flight.
Are Airlines allowed to kick off passengers and keep their money?
@Gary, LOL. It’s BA. Of course they’re dumber than plug.
Is it just me, or has the World decided that overbooking flights is perfectly normal and airlines can do as they wish
IMHO, British Airways was wrong from the very start, they overbooked the flight … end of story!
Plainly a very British clash of DYKWIA; entitled lawyers (with nanny in tow) and uppity BA I’m-better-than-you cabin crew!
How could it possibly have ever ended well ?
What compensation did they offer for the oversell??
The whole concept of deliberately overselling seats is wrong. Yes, I understand that airlines have to maximize income but don’t they also need to prioritize customer satisfaction? BA really dropped the ball, on both counts.
In Japan and much of Asia, airlines do not oversell flights, at least not local ones. In 35 years of traveling to and from Japan, I have only heard one announcement seeking a volunteer because of overselling. You guessed it – on a Delta flight to NYC! Flyers should demand better treatment from carriers.
It might also have to do with weight and balance. If that calculation had been made and then then the nanny was to sit in the middle seat, the calculation would have to be redone.
I would think that they count on the middle seats being empty, so that is factored into the weight and balance calculation. The lawyer should have downgraded himself and let the nanny take his seat and request for compensation after the flight.
Rules are rules…..
Skyslash—- “weight and balance”? What, was the aircraft a 10-20 seater? That response has to be one of the dumbest replies I have ever read, and I have read some dumb responses before.
I don’t think the title is right. They never requested an upgrade. They already had business class tickets and the nanny was downgraded. They were simply requesting what they paid for,
No one on this post knows how the barrister or the FAs conducted themselves during this dispute, so any claims of right or wrong are complete speculation.
Nice to see that arrogant airline behavior isn’t just limited to USA carriers. For a while, I was worried that were were the only folks to suffer their authoritarian “do it our way, or you are a security threat” attitude.
You mean they oversold the flight rather than the cabin. Since Euro J seats are the same as Y, the cabin can be as big or small as they want. Just move the curtain back a row and voila, the cabin is bigger
First, I’m not a fan of kids in premium cabins. Shouldn’t be allowed as a proof of respect to other high yield passengers.
Then, indeed, BA did wrong overbooking premium cabin. However, COVID 19 times…how could one’s blame them?
Customers may not be happy but there’s always time to complain later. If they are responsible parents, each parent can sit next to one kid and give free time to the nanny. Or have indeed 1 of the parents suffer the humiliation of sitting at the rear… I fear that the real problem here is dealing with ego. Could be?
Title for the story is incorrect as no upgrade was sought, only that the party of 5 not be broken up. Putting aside the already open seat in the section, I can’t believe that there wasn’t a party of 1 who could not have been chosen instead.
“ You wish” was very unprofessional. That probably pissed them off. It would had me.
God forbid the parents had to take care of their own children on a two hour flight !
Based on the information available, seems to me like the lawyer is a whiny, high-maintenance jackass.
Sky waitresses are power crazed scum. That is the problem.
Next time, take a greyhound, fred. That seems more your style anyway
Although we don’t know the full facts this illustrates the sheer contempt and stupidity by BA with their total inability to manage a delicate situation, not to mention yet another PR disaster. Add to that their attitude of “we will hit you with absolute brute force if at any time you question our decisions and authority”. Remember, this is one of many Airlines that decided to ride roughshod over the Law they were obliged to follow with regard to cash refunds, by trying to use cancelled flight reservations as “cashflow prop-up funding”. Corporate mugging of Consumers in the Travel Industry is now standard practice, so it seems.
Many posted that the lawyer should have moved himself or the group to economy and dealt with BA later since the flight is so short and I completely agree. But I also had to remember: book smarts does not equate to common sense. He clearly had none.
@David Miller – While 1 person moving isn’t going to affect things much on that size of aircraft, they do still have to do W&B computations for each and every flight, including taking into account where passengers are sitting. It’s not something unique to small aircraft. For airlines, it’s usually done by dispatch with the reports then passed on to the flight crew.
Sounds like there were plenty of failures on both sides here, though I’d agree that it’s mostly on BA for the overbook and involuntary downgrade.
However, if they indeed continued to cause problems even after pushback, then I’d have to agree with BA’s decision to kick them off for that reason alone. Work it out before pushback or deal with it and contact HQ later. Once the aircraft starts moving, you need to be in a seat, buckled up. It is the law and for good reason.
I would agree that the family’s proposed solution seems reasonable, even generous, though I’m not sure if there were any legitimate reasons why it was not allowable in this particular case. For example, if they didn’t have seatbelts in the unused middle seats, then this solution obviously wouldn’t be legal. It’s also possible that it could have required re-running the W&B numbers, which could have led to a flight delay. There are lots of potential legitimate operational reasons that they may have needed to refuse the request, even though it sounds reasonable on the surface. However, if that was the case, they definitely failed at communicating those. “You wish” is hardly an appropriate response, though it’s possible that the FA didn’t realize she had originally been ticketed in business at this point and was just trying to self-upgrade (not that it’s really much of an upgrade.)
At least at some airlines, FAs aren’t allowed to do upgrades on board. Usually the gate agent is supposed to do that (among other reasons, so that it gets properly entered into the reservation system, which is then used by dispatch to calculate weight and balance.) Not sure what BA’s procedure is, though.
They really should have tried to work this out before even getting on the plane (surely they knew prior to scanning their boarding passes that the nanny had been downgraded?) While their proposed solution once on board doesn’t sound unreasonable on the surface, they should have either had one of them swap places with the nanny or just accepted it how it was once their request was declined, then take it up with BA after they arrive.
“should have allowed the nanny to sit in a business middle seat since she had a purchased business ticket”
Is that allowed ? I mean That middle seat isn’t a seat at this point. As far as the official numbers on the flight manifest and staffing levels etc are concerned the flight is full.
No BA flight at TRN has a 3 hour turn around time. They are all 50-55 minutes.
@vbscript “It is the law and for good reason”. Couldn’t agree more, just as it is the Consumer Protection Law for good reason that Passenger Refunds should be applied firstly as a cash refund and not as a Voucher with restrictive conditions. Odd how BA allegedly wished to enforce the Law which suited their advantage, but not the one that didn’t! The original Daily Mail article states that the Nanny was re-ticked at the gate and a Credit Voucher was issued. Agree entirely that Passenger safety & security is of prime importance. Just as Consumer Protection is written into Law. The Law works both ways, but Airlines do not have a charter to cherry pick which Laws they want to follow so to suit their convenience.
I am absolutely appalled. Not a single lawyer joke out of any of you?
I would agree that the family’s proposed solution seems reasonable, even generous, though I’m not sure if there were any legitimate reasons why it was not allowable in this particular case. For example, if they didn’t have seatbelts in the unused middle seats, then this solution obviously wouldn’t be legal. It’s also possible that it could have required re-running the W&B numbers, which could have led to a flight delay.
Helldoge – go suck a cock you worthless POS.
It shouldn’t be like this. Obviously the incompetence of the airline staff.
@Roland Cole – This one did, I pulled up the schedule and followed the aircraft
Are you sure you have facts right? Another blog stated they paid for 5 business class seats and one was downgraded at the gate without prior notice because of overbooking. Family said they would have swithched flights if they had known. The title of your ‘article’ sounds as if the family wanted something for free.
@David Miller
Your response about weight and balance being only for “10-20 seater” is ignorant. While I am not suggesting that weight and balance was the issue here at all, particularly since BA’s Club Europe is specifically described in the post, it is certainly not only small gauge aircraft that may have a weight and balance issue.
The “do not F with us” status of airlines often makes sense, but does go horribly wrong & increasingly so.
It’s a curious quirk where regulation required airlines to compete and deregulation cannot open the market more because of limited slots / landing density… so you have low-paid gatekeeper mentality sticking it to entitled rich folks. Not a good mix
Agreed with @jerry above. Still, if I was a judge I’d fire a warning shot at BA. There needs to be some check on their status
BA once downgraded me, my wife and my (then) 7 year old from Business to Premium Economy in Dubai. My 4-year old son, however, had been kicked off the flight entirely and booked into a hotel room for the day, from where he was expected to make his own way back to the airport for the evening flight.
Two words PRIVATE JET !
Much of this seems to assume that one can actually get in-touch with corporate BA and that they actually respond. Remember, one of the big “premium” pushes from the new BA CEO is to…actually answer the phone.
What would the downgrade compensation be on that intra Europe flight? On UA, when there was a maintenance issue delay TATL to MAD, causing a change to another flight MAD-LIS and downgrade on Iberia, I got about $400.
Delta once recommended me on BA first class Transatlantic. At the gate, BA refused to accept the recommendation even though I already had boarding passes for the flight, told me the flight was overbooked, and would not help any further. I will seek to harm BA in the future in whatever way I reasonably and legally can.
Three words: it’s British Air. I’ve flown them several times over the years, and the best experience I’ve had was lukewarm. I see the issue as a corporate management responsibility … they don’t allow their employees to handle problems with common sense. BA people do what their procedures manual tells them or they risk their jobs. One of the dumbest: LHR-CDG flight … we’re there with our rollaboards waiting for boarding. Gate asks us if we’d check them. After some surgery, my husband often used a cane for long walks; standing around was not very comfortable for him. Sure, if we can board first, no problem. The rollaboards are whisked away, we are directed to the jetway. Where we stand for half an hour awaiting boarding. Nobody’s fault, but the GA should have allowed him to sit down until she was ready for us. BA people expend most of their energy trying to adhere to BA procedures and don’t have much left for thinking about the pax.
What has tickled me about this article is how the author never refers to the guy as a barrister. That kind of passive aggressiveness is brilliant.
Lots of things don’t ring true:
1. They knew at the gate. They should have resolved it there (any lawyer would know that)
2. I’ve seen disruptive passengers. They don’t go back to gate just because you’re silently unhappy
3. One PAX was a 1 year old and it doesn’t say whether they had a seat assigned or just lap. The lawyer obv wanted quiet to work, so you can be sure the middle seat they wanted isn’t next to him and his wife. So it’s impacting on other bus pax. If you’re gonna fill the middle seat you might as well downgrade ME.
As for overbooking, we can get rid of it if every nonflex passenger is happy to pay more. Fully flex pax, esp in premium, and those with gold cards subsidise the rest. If you’re a lawyer, my advice is read the T&Cs. Probably worst career ad for the lawyer ever.
Add: if the 1 year old had their own seat the nanny could have taken that one and used the middle seat during flight for the infant (the other child being in the seat next) . So probably it was on an infant ticket, meaning a bus pax would have the nanny in the “middle seat” with an infant on lap for the whole flight.
In that scenario, BA did EXACTLY the right thing.
What nonsense are you writing? No upgrade was sought? They had paid for the business class. The airline overbooked. You are definitely taking .money from the airline