BA's problems began when they arrogantly branded themselves 'The World's Favourite Airline' and adopted a haughty 'last outpost of the Empire' attitude to customers.
They then decided to 'lose' their Britishness, under Robert Ayling, to rebrand themselves as a 'global' airline, and spent millions of pounds painting aircraft in colour schemes that in many cases quite honestly made them look as if a cat had sicked up over them.
Professional, reliable, and safe they may be, but many of us have other criteria when choosing with whom we spend our money, or even our employer's money. I stopped flying with them years ago after a minor incident at check-in was mishandled and then compounded by spite, lies, arrogance, and libellous remarks being placed about me in their system.
It was at that point that I decided No Way BA .... and apart from a couple of regionals in Southern Africa and one flight to the Caribbean where I had no choice because we travelled as part of a group, I've kept off their aircraft.