Tag Archives for british airways.
Your ticket for a flight with meal service does not, in fact, entitle you to a meal. It only entitles you to food if there’s any left when crew reach your row. By predicting that a certain number of passengers won’t eat, airlines can save significantly on their catering costs.
British Airways failed to cater a transatlantic flight from the Caribbean to London on Monday. While they were on the ground in Nassau, they picked up KFC from the airport. Each passenger in economy and in business class received one chicken leg apiece from a bucket.
Normally when passengers don’t receive their meals it’s because of a catering issue. And it’s limited to a few passengers. Maybe they didn’t get their special meal choice, or their first choice wasn’t loaded. If it’s United Airlines, maybe they just ran out of food. But British Airways flight 56 on July 20 may have had the most surprising reason I’ve seen for passengers not to get fed on a long haul flight: the crew rest seats were broken. What does that have to do with feeding passengers, especially since it doesn’t appear that there was trouble catering the aircraft? Crew on an 11 hour flight get rest breaks. Normally on a widebody aircraft they get time in the crew rest area. But if those seats are unavailable they’ll assign business class seats for this…
British Airways is moving to revenue-based points-earning starting October 18. This applies to their own flights credited to the Executive Club program.
If you’re flying British Airways within Europe, bring wipes and hand sanitizer. British Airways now only allocates 6 minutes between flights for cleaning on European trips, no longer wiping down seats and tray tables, or even cleaning lavatories, between 6 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. and between Noon and 5 p.m.
One of the controversial views I hold in miles and points is that – as much as I believe fuel surcharges on award tickets are offensive and destructive – I will pay them when there’s good premium cabin award availability at a reasonable mileage price.
I’ve flown British Airways from Austin to London many, many times.
Conservative media personality Candace Owens bought business class tickets to London for her family on British Airways. Her seats had no working power, so they wouldn’t recline. Seat power didn’t work to charge her devices. And the seatback entertainment screen didn’t work either.
The London-based carrier didn’t tell her about the problem in advance. She discovered it on board when, apparently, it was too late to switch seats or even downgrade to economy where should could use seat video to entertain her kids. And while she says she was promised a full refund for the problem – she did not get what she paid for – the airline’s customer service only offered her $200 in travel credit against $18,000 in airfare.
British Airways is launching ‘Avios Only’ flights – flights they aren’t selling for cash, just making available for redemption.
More airlines should offer more availability once they properly understand the value in delivering to members over the long-term. Programs should be willing to spend more with their airline on seats, to avoid killing their golden goose – in the U.S. the biggest airline loyalty programs are worth 11 figures, and generate $5 billion-plus annually in revenue. Frustrated members reduce that long-term value proposition
British Airways is seeing low customer satisfaction scores and testing increased flight attendant staffing on its worst-performing routes to see whether or not that moves the needle.
A woman took to social media to rant about British Airways stonewalling her over compensation after another passenger had the audacity to die on her flight, causing her much distress. And since CPR was being performed in the aisle of the aircraft, cabin crew were unable to provide a second meal service – preferring to try to save a life instead. She wants to know what she can do to get British Airways to cover the pain and suffering that she had to endure?
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
