First of all, I’m flightcrew and I have been for nearly 20 years. This period has and will continue to be very difficult for all of us, and as a workforce, I have a lot of respect and empathy for all of my peers and what they’ve had to deal with, regardless of carrier, at this time.
That said, with my work hat off and full fare-paying passenger hat on, BA’s service level is appalling nowadays. Several recent flights as a fare-paying passenger have left me less than impressed every single time. In my opinion nothing distinguishes them from other (average at best) low cost airlines - they’ve lost their USP entirely and they do know it - that’s why they no longer refer to themselves as ‘The World’s Favourite’ - it’s because they’re not. I used to willingly pay more for a BA service because of the better service level than the low cost brigade, as tempting as they’re fares were, but they have now aligned their product (and attitude) with that of said low cost carriers, yet still have the cheek to charge (in many cases), a much higher fare - I imagine they think some will still just pay for the name (and those awful M&S sandwiches), despite no real ‘substance’ any more. This is not the fault of the crew at all and I sympathise with them because they’ve lost the tools (and quality training it seems) to be able to do their jobs as well as in years gone by. But as someone said above, an experienced crew member would hesitate to ‘tempt fate‘ and shout from the rooftops about an early arrival before actually arriving (not overhead, not landing - at the gate with parking brake set and engines shut down).
I’ve had some awful diversions with hefty ground delays (on arrival) with both Aer Lingus and Easyjet before, where ground staff/company staff/crew could have done something (anything!) to help the situation, but did absolutely nothing - it happens unfortunately, it shouldn’t happen, but is not unique to BA. It’s not the end of the world, but the frustrating part is that whichever the carrier, what they all have in common nowadays is that the cost-cutting, bonus-hungry ‘management’ just don’t seem to care one jot about customer experience and inconvenience whatsoever: cue the copied and pasted insincere standard responses of ‘it was out of
our control’, ‘our customer’s opinion means a lot to us’, ‘we’re really sorry we didn’t impress you on this occasion’, blah blah blah - whatever. I don’t bother complaining any more.
As an aside - pilot hat back on - why is it I’ve found, increasingly in recent years, that only the BA flightcrews stare at you like you’re from another planet when you say ‘good morning’ walking through the terminal? Is it the impersonal BA management culture filtering down from above? If so, what a shame. Everyone used to be so friendly, even at 5 o’clock in the morning!
Have a good day all.