A BA Tale of two halves.....
Forgive the length of this post but needing to get off my chest and wondering if others have had similar experiences....flying BA MAN-LHR-JFK Friday 7th Aug. Arrive at MAN 90mins before flight, family of four, all checked in, boarding cards pre-printed for both sectors. We join the "Fast Bag Drop" queue and after 5 mins were called out of the queue by an agent and asked to go down to the end check-in (Gold/Business) with the words "Tell them I sent you".... we duly go down as requested and after waiting for one other passenger to be checked-in are called forward. From this moment it all goes pear-shaped. The high-handed agent (employed by Aviance but representing BA) proceded to publicly humiliate me and my family - accusing us of queue jumping and stating very loudly the desk was for Business Class only (as if I can't read). I tried to explain why we were there but to no avail and rather like naughty schoolchildren were banished to the back of the original line (which of course was considerably longer by then!). I asked at "Customer Services" for a Senior Manager to come down to the floor and was told the only person available was an Aviance Supervisor who was "busy checking in other passengers". I fed back our experience to the original agent who sent us down; this person proceeds down to the Gold Desk and therafter followed a public stand-up argument between the staff. 45 minutes later we drop our bags, and with relief went through security. On a better note the second half of this tale was the EXCELLENT service given by the cabin crew on both sectors... (NB Mr Walsh) the teams on board the A319 & 747 could not be faulted - highly professional, personable and faultless. However in spite of the efforts of the crew I feel it highly unlikely I will, by choice, fly BA again - the Avaiance staff were so awful why would I want to put my family through an experience WORSE than that of eJ or Ryanair on a BAD day! I did hand a letter to the CSD on the LHR-JFK sector in the hope it might get through layers of defences to the CEO (but in slim hope really) - perhaps any BA managment (with any "clout") reading this might at least go and observe the service they have "purchased" in MAN and then maybe think that cheap (assuming Aviance are cheap) is not necessarily best in terms of passenger retention! Bye-Bye BA....