Aaarggh!!!! Can't contact BA customer services!

[Tonkatoy]

I'm going to run the risk of this sounding like a jetblast rant but...

I'm in EDI and BA have cancelled my flight to LCY this afternoon. Now, thats understandable given the conditions. But, I want to get home so I've tried to called them to find an alternative route home.

WTF can't I call them? I call their customer services line and having been told they're busy (no really?? :rolleyes: ) they just drop the call. I'm happy to sit in a queue, but no, I don't even get the choice.

Great, that means I've got to get down to EDI just to speak to someone, who may or not be able to help, and so add to the hoards of people already cluttering up the place.

:* :mad: :*

[Getoutofmygalley]

The call might be dropped because the maximum amount of lines that they have are occupied with people in the queue.

Call centres only have a maximum amount of lines into them, and once each line is clogged with a call in the queue, then calls will start to be dropped.

[Tonkatoy]

I know that, actually from a professional perspective, but why should I let that get in the way of a good rant! There's nothing like the red mist :)

I do wonder about the strength of BA's continency planning, though.

Anyway, I'm off to catch a train...

[apaddyinuk]

There was a emergency line BA released on Sky News earlier. Sorry, dont have it to hand but at least it might guide you in the right direction!

[Haven't a clue]

I got a text message from BA at 0530 on Wednesday morning advising my LGW/IOM flight had been cancelled and inviting me to log on to BA.com or to call an 0870 number to discuss options.

I logged on and couldn't do anything on the site - BA normally shut down many of the options within 24 hours of departure anyway - but got a screen telling me to call them.

Sod that. Went online. Looked at the Gatwick TAF (aviation weather forecast) which didn't look that good. Booked Virgin (train) from Euston to Lancaster and Northern train to Heysham. Booked IoM Steam Packet from Heysham to Douglas. Had breakfast and set off at 0730. Got home at 1800.

Co-incidently I subsequently discovered that had I rebooked to a later flight, I would have got home at a similar time...but:

a) I hate telephone queues
b) I hate the BA messages in their telephone queues
c) There would have been loads of people trying to sort out their travel arrangements, and the queus would take a while to shorten
d) if I headed to LGW from London and failed to get on a flight I would have had to stay over another day
e) boats and trains don't usually suffer from fog
f) better some certainty in the arrangements than rely on luck and goodwill to get a seat on a plane

In the end I spent a pleasant day catching up on the newspapers and reading a book. I didn't have to sweat it out at Gatwick.

Perhaps we have forgotten that journeys by air are at the behest of the weather. As posted elsewhere, the entire airline industry has taken the weather out of it's planning...and BAA's plan to run mixed mode operation at LHR will make matters there significantly worse!