I once wrote BA a polysyllabic pirouette of protest when Concord was six hours late out of London to collect two of us in Barbados. It worked quite well and BA very kindly sent me three First Class returns to Bridgetown as a compensation for the inconvenience of arriving into Heathrow later than the usual supersonic civilised time. I have no idea why the airline's largesse extended to three tickets. It did however involve me in considerable expense in that I had to fund another hotel stay in Barbados in order to use the tickets so kindly supplied by BA. So yes indeed, writing to an airline can work. It takes only a little time to politely tell them how irritated you are. And if you do receive apologetic consolation it is very gratifying if only because of its apparent rarity value.