Far be it for me to defend politicians, especially the current government
, or BA, but...
...I suspect BA's policy is to put people who (directly or indirectly) spend a lot of money with them at the top of the list when upgrades are possible. Regardless of who they are. Whatever you say about BA, they are a commercial organisation, and are pretty focused on what might make them more profitable in future. Some politicians do have to travel a lot and if BA can make more of their (or our
) money go their way, it shouldn't be a surprise if they do. (Whether all those journeys need to be by air is another question).
I suspect BA's policy is also to upgrade anyone only when there are free seats and sufficient catering is available. So from the airline's perspective it probably isn't costing them extra, and someone else isn't being disadvantaged to accommodate them (in fact it may allow another economy passenger on the flight).
You could argue about whether politicians should benefit personally (via upgrades / lounge access) for flights on government business - but that's not really the airline's issue.
For the sake of balance, it would be interesting to see the list of government politicians' flights which HADN'T been subject to a free upgrade. Or about the number of upgrades given every day to complete nobodies who just happen to travel a lot on business.
Now if they are DEMANDING an upgrade from the airline, because of who they are, that's another matter entirely...
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