Swanwick, Refunds. EZY: "Yes", BA: "No" !!??

[paulo]

Four hours delay yesterday? If only. Mine was one of 80 or so cancelled. The next available flight, 22 hours later, wasn't going to get me where I needed to be in time, so I had no use for the ticket. The BA position was a polite but frustrating "you have a non refundable ticket, you are not entitled to a refund."

Easyjet however were unequivocal - making the refund promise as part of the first voice message on their customer help line.

After about 8 hours camped at LHR, making lots of phone calls, I did get BA to agree to give a refund. I assume that other passengers who'd not persevered didn't get the option to cancel with a refund.

Anyone know if it really is BA policy to refuse refunds (to non-change ticket holders) if they can't provide the ticketed flight?

Swanwick wasn't the airlines' fault, but it was their problem in terms of customer relations - something that "budget" Easyjet seemed to grasp.

[bealine]

I am indeed sorry, on behalf of BA, if you felt my colleagues were being unkind. Unfortunately, a few yeas ago, when I joined BA, we were making sufficient profits to refund and compensate almost "without question".

We were losing money before 11th September 2001.

From 12th September until very recently, money was "haemorraging" at the rate of £2-3m per day (more than you can even visualize!) - Indeed, not only was Bealine's job on the line, so was (and still could be) every BA worker at LGW!

Basically, the ATC problem has cost BA a fantastic amount of lost revenue, most of which will be non-recoverable and is uninsurable! BA cannot afford, in it's present situation, to pay for the actions of third parties over which it has no control.

EZY are making enough money to wipe BA's face in the dirt - something they are gloating about with the acquisition of arch-rival"Go"!

EZY can afford refunds - BA cannot! Given the circumstances, I'm sure, once the dust of the ATC problem had settled, BA would have re-booked the travel - possibly even changing the destination - for another date!

Once again, I am sorry for any of our customers who felt hard done by - our decisions were not made through choice, I assure you!

[Patagonia]

You may be interested to note that a quick check on EZYs site reveals that they have waived their 4 hour refund rule, and will not be doing it because all airlines were suffering!

[Exel]

Where have you been Bealine ????

"BA cannot afford, in it's present situation, to pay for the actions of third parties over which it has no control. "

Arn't BA part of The Airline Group who partially own NATS? and who has a major stake holding in the company. Therefore they do have some control over NATS. Ever heard of taking the rough with the smooth ?

Whilst the breakdown at Swanwick was unfortunate to say the least, the situation was even more severly compounded by the Brussels CFMU system crashing, and then again when it did come back on line, the failure of certain large national carriers to update their flight plans as requested!!!

[ST.CRISPIN]

The greek has a different fare structure to nigels and really they don't have to rebook you AT ALL. It's not their problem, and even without refunds BA has lost a massive whack as a result of this crapology. Also BA 'owns' PART of a PART of NATS (No Air Travel Service).
I wonder what MOL's positions was on refunds etc. I heard stories of flights disappearing off screens and people not knowing what had happened.I have had an experience where my flight was cancelled as a direct result of THEIR shoddy tech work, and we offered seats on the next flight. A flight which was longer selling!!!!!
If you went with Ba at least you'd get there or rebooked for another day.

[paulo]

Patagonia - To clarify (my Vienna flight was cancelled) - EZY site says they will refund for cancelled flights. BA position was that rebook was the only option.

With regards revenue loss, I was discussing this later in the day with one of the guys in the Newcastle call centre. By this time, I had got agreement on a refund. I asked if - rather than cancel and BA lose the revenue - would they consider letting me have one of the empty Club Europe seats on the Prague flight, if any remained unsold. Win win, surely?

Basically he said no, and that yes, BA would fly empty business seats of out of LHR on Friday rather than allow 'ineligible' economy passengers of cancelled flights to use them.

I must say that all the staff I spoke to were unfailingly polite and understanding on what must have been a very stressful day for most people in the industry. And yet, without fail, they could not use the one thing that BA had available - empty seats. (Because they were leather!)

I don't want to see BA sink. I have a few friends working there long term, with their final salary pensions to look forward to etc. But after this, BA will be my absolute last choice.

[Carnage Matey!]

If BA had cancelled the flight due to problems of its own making I'm pretty sure you'd have a good case for a refund as its their error. In fact if you'd decided to rebook the next day they'd even have put you up in a hotel for the night at BAs expense. I've seen it done many times. What the company cannot do is change the ticketing rules for events which are outside its control, be it NATS falling apart, bad weather or airports closing. In those circumstances, if your ticket says no refund then generally it means no refund. Its your choice whether to try to blag a club seat, but BA have to preserve the exclusivity of the premium cabins or nobody will bother paying the extra cash. If we started upgrading everyone because of delays beyond our control we'd have some very p'ed off club pax. Incidentally had you been flying with Easy from LTN and they'd cancelled a flight you might get a refund for an overnight delay but you'd be kicking your heels around the airport for the night whilst waiting for the next flight.

[paulo]

OK, some questions then:

1. What %ge of passengers were offered hotels (those with cancelled flights, rebooked flight being the following day)?

2. What was the policy on refunds for passengers who could not use the next day flights? What %ge of passengers were offered a refund?

We've established that on Easyjet, answer (a) is 'none', answer (b) is 'everyone'.

[cargosales]

Surely this is just another example of BA reaping what it has sown i.e. poor , inflexible management combined with little real regard for the paying public.

As to whether giving upgrades when problems occur, sorry but I think that's a red herring. Provided PAX is suitably dressed, does it matter? When you book club you have no guarantee as to how full the club section is going to be. So what does it cost to put someone in an otherwise empty club. Let's be honest, it's not a lot. Plus that PAX would be chuffed to get the seat and might even consider using the airline again.

I work for a company with staff making dozens of flights a year we don't fly BA if at all possible, primarily because they won't consider FOC upgrades. No, we don't have any right to be upgraded but considering the number of flights we make it's a nice gesture which keeps us using certain carriers. Recently did 13 sectors in 11 days :( to / in the States and went there / back with another carrier because we had a chance of an upgrade. (Got it and boy did it feel good after the US airlines).

Most of the BA staff on the ground and in the air are great but that doesn't make up for the company's arrogant and inflexible attitude.

[Hand Solo]

The answer to Paulos question are likely to be:

a) None, because as has been previously stated, if its not BAs fault they don't pay for it. However I have personally been stuck behind a queue of c. 300 pax waiting to check in at a Heathrow hotel after the SIN flight went tech. BA will look after you if its their problem, but you can hardly expect them to be obliged to look after everybody with a hard luck story.

b) I expect that every passenger on a refundable ticket will have been offered a refund, those on non-refundable tickets will not. It is an unfortunate truism of modern air travel that the ticket represents a contract to get you from A to B with no binding commitment to the actual time you get there. If you buy a cheap, non-refundable ticket then you accept an element of risk. Its a cliche, but read the small print. Easy may refund everyone for a four hour delay (although it seems they don't any longer), but thats their stated policy, not BAs. If your flight had gone tech in Vienna would you prefer a refund for your overnight delay or a hotel room?

Cargosales: the moment you upgrade everybody to club the following things happen.

1) The cabin gets crowded, it becomes more time consuming and stressful to embark/disembark our already peeved premium pax.

2) The overhead lockers fill up with the wheelie bags of the upgrades, which means less space for our most profitable customers to store their bags on board, they may even have to go into the hold.

3) The catering cost goes up, or you have to give the upgrades economy food, thus alerting everyone to the fact that 60% of the cabin are on a free upgrade.

4) The crew bill goes up as you have to add additional cabin crew to cope with the increased service demand, which means you get delayed whilst you wait for the extra crew member(s) to get to the aircraft, or you go a crew member short and reduce the service levels.

5) Everyone wants to get in the Executive Lounge which fills up and deprives premium pax of a place to sit.

Contrary to popular belief, upgrading is not a zero cost item. It can have a real impact in terms of crewing costs (yes, just one more pax can mean one more crew member) and it dilutes the premium brand and service which is our bread and butter, and which our most important customers have come to expect. We are acutely aware of who our biggest customers are, and they benefit from their loyalty to BA not by the occasional random upgrade but by a regular hefty refund on their travel costs. A regular, predictable and reliable bonus which our most regular corporate customers are happy to accept.

Upgrading does take place reasonably regularly when there's good commercial reason, but for every 'good reason' pax there are at least ten more trying it on. Good reasons do not include "I bought a cheap ticket and was inconvenienced by air traffic control delays" or "upgrade me and maybe I might fly with your company more often"!

[ST.CRISPIN]

agree with hand solo above. BA and every other airline is very aware of their most loyal (read profitable customers) and not only the rebates but also regular u/g's when necessary and the use of specialised teams in airports for smoothing of ruffled feathers.
There is no point in calling your company loyal if you're purchasing the cheapest tickets, have no Group membership of the ff programme, and CONSTANTLY demand an upgrade. Loyalty is an airline being your first preference, your 'speedial airline', and nobody could be more loyal in return then an airline, if you DESERVE it, on comercial grounds.

[cargosales]

Hand Solo

Oh dear. I'm afraid your reply just typifies all that is wrong with BA from the customers point of view. Suggest you read a post properly before adopting the BA party line. As to your points

"The cabin gets crowded, it becomes more time consuming and stressful to embark/disembark our already peeved premium pax. "

Isn't your aim to fill up the cabin anyway?

"The overhead lockers fill up with the wheelie bags of the upgrades, which means less space for our most profitable customers to store their bags on board, they may even have to go into the hold"

Ditto, plus we're passengers too, not 'upgrades'. And I don't have a 'wheelie bag'.

"The catering cost goes up, or you have to give the upgrades economy food, thus alerting everyone to the fact that 60% of the cabin are on a free upgrade."

Fair point. But are 60% really on an upgrade?

"The crew bill goes up as you have to add additional cabin crew to cope with the increased service demand, which means you get delayed whilst you wait for the extra crew member(s) to get to the aircraft, or you go a crew member short and reduce the service levels. "

Could be valid but never been delayed like that yet that I know of

"Everyone wants to get in the Executive Lounge which fills up and deprives premium pax of a place to sit. "

Never been near the place. Too busy myself. But again, if your aim is to fill the cabin with premium pax, surely the Executive Lounge would get full too?

"Contrary to popular belief, upgrading is not a zero cost item. It can have a real impact in terms of crewing costs (yes, just one more pax can mean one more crew member) and it dilutes the premium brand and service which is our bread and butter, and which our most important customers have come to expect. We are acutely aware of who our biggest customers are, and they benefit from their loyalty to BA not by the occasional random upgrade but by a regular hefty refund on their travel costs. A regular, predictable and reliable bonus which our most regular corporate customers are happy to accept. "

Didn't say it was a zero cost item. I actually said I didn't think it cost a lot. If you look at the cost of say, giving paolo an upgrade to Prague, versus him using another carrier now and (say he liked it - not everyone thinks BA service is the best in the world - in the future), thus depriving BA of his future revenue, the cost of that upgrade doesn't seem so huge.

"Upgrading does take place reasonably regularly when there's good commercial reason, but for every 'good reason' pax there are at least ten more trying it on. Good reasons do not include "I bought a cheap ticket and was inconvenienced by air traffic control delays" or "upgrade me and maybe I might fly with your company more often"!"

Well, the "upgrade me and maybe I might fly with your company more often" argument goes down well here. And it operates in practice. In my team we've done 8 transatlantic flights in the last few months alone. All with the same airline. Small beer maybe but that's 8 lots of revenue that BA didn't get!. Multiply that by all the other companies following suit and you might make at least a dent in that £200 million!!

Oh and St Crispin, we neither "CONSTANTLY" nor "demand" upgrades. We ask politely and are grateful when we get them. We are in their ff programme and we are loyal to that carrier!

[Hand Solo]

I'm not peddling the BA company line cargosales, I'm merely reporting facts from my own experience, discussions from management and talking with the dispatchers and check in staff.

Our aim is to fill up the cabin, but with premium passengers. Whats the point in crowding the place up unnecessarily with upgrades? If you upgrade one guy on a cheap ticket why don't we upgrade the more lucrative full fare economy passengers who've also been disrupted?

Yes, you are passengers too, but you haven't paid for the space in the premium cabin, other people have. They should get first shot at it. You may not have a wheelie bag, but fly short haul in Europe and see just how many people have.

Probably 60% of the passengers aren't on upgrades, but if we didn't keep a tight rein on things they would be, thats why we don't upgrade as a matter of routine.

Extra cabin crew requirement is a valid reason for delaying a flight. I've been delayed for that reason several times in recent months.

You may never have been near the Executive Lounge but most of our premium pax have. Airport space is not cheap, in fact it costs a small fortune. The lounges are designed with an expected level of usage in mind, a level that will ensure comfort most of the time and just about sufficient capacity at peak periods, and we rent a sufficient amount of floor space from the airport to allow us to meet those objectives. We do not want a scenario where we are running at just about sufficient capacity at all times.

Fair enough, you didn't say upgrading wasn't zero cost, but lots of people think it is. In reality it can cost us more than a little and has to be carefully controlled and targeted to be of maximum benefit to us. If you destroy the exclusivity of the brand it becomes worthless. Why do you think the designer labels are so opposed to supermarkets selling their goods? Do you think people would keep wearing Versace if they knew everybody could get it cheap down at Tescos? As for upgrading Paolo, what realistic benefit does that achieve? It undermines our own regulations regarding upgrades and it only benefits the guy on the cheapo, non-refundable ticket. Fine, it may just be the case that Paolo controls a large company travel budget and we're shooting ourselves in the foot, but most pax on that kind of ticket are primarily price sensitive and will fly with whoever offers the cheapest fare. Were not getting much bang for our buck, and there was never any entitlement to an upgrade so why get so miffed when you don't get it?

Ok you've done eight transatlantic flights in the last few months on the basis that you might get an upgrade with another airline. Well thats your right and your choice. We operate roughly 300 club flat beds to JFK every day, thats 9000 per month, to just one destination. Our biggest customers fly much, much more than eight transatlantics in a few months and they choose First and Concorde too. Do you really think the best use of our resources is in targeting your company travel department as opposed to theirs?

I'm sorry you choose not to fly with BA, but loyalty schemes work both ways. You show the loyalty first, then we reward you. Its four times more expensive to gain a new customer than to keep an existing one. We prefer to direct our resources towards keeping our existing loyal customers happy and by and large we seem to be doing a good job of it.

[cargosales]

Firstly, don't get me totally wrong. I have no wish to see BA go under or whatever. I would rather fly them than an American carrier any day. What I do wish is that BA stop being so damned arrogant and sneering down it's nose at anyone paying less than full premium fare. It doesn't sit easily with a £200m loss.

Your comment "but loyalty schemes work both ways. You show the loyalty first, then we reward you" just highlights the attitude problem at BA. Businesses need to earn loyalty by satisfying customers as well as rewarding loyalty from loyal customers. It's a TWO WAY thing!!

(And please stop assuming that just because a company is cutting it's cloth to suit the current tough climate (i.e. economy rather than club) that it will automatically go for the cheapest possible, non-refundable ticket. We still need some flexibility)

Rule 1 of marketing is to find out what people want and give it to them. (at a profit of course).

If you are only interested in targetting resources at your biggest customers who "fly much, much more than eight transatlantics in a few months" then great. But you shouldn't wonder why all of us 'less significant customers' don't then fly BA. And that I think is why BA is not the world player it ought to, and should, be.

Oh and in the past few months we've also done trips round the Far East, Middle East, Africa, probably a couple of dozen to Europe etc etc. Can't remember any of them being on BA. Not bad for a team of three.

As things pick up we will be able to go back to booking and paying for premium seats. I don't control a large company travel budget but I do have control of who I fly with, as do my colleagues. We will certainly remember which airlines did what for us. And whose ff programmes have been slowly accumulating, if at a lower rate than normal. And we will continue flying with them. As we have both said, loyalty is a two way thing!

[Hand Solo]

So what exactly is it your asking of BA? That amidst the hundreds of thousands of passengers we carry we somehow identify you and your colleagues, infrequent flyers with BA, non-members of our loyaylty scheme, and make you feel 'special'. Well thats what our cabin crew have been trying to do for years for everybody, but you're not going to get any better treatment than our other passengers if your not showing up on our good customer radar, and with that profile you won't. If we start handing out upgrades to every full fare economy passenger in the hope that we manage to hit a potential long term customer it would be chaos, unlikely to achieve success and detrimental to our existing premium passengers. The cabin crew are good, but they're not mind readers. If you were doing as many full fare economy miles as you say you are you'd be well on to the premium tiers of the loyalty scheme and reaping the rewards, but do you think its fair to give you the same perks as the people who've already put in the mileage with us?

[paulo]

I'll come back to upgrades, but to keep to distinct topics....


Does BA want or need the low margin customers?

We can get into discussion about the place of low fares in the yield curve, and whether the high margin tickets can only exist with the bottom half of the curve in place.

But I'm assuming BA does indeed want or need or to play in that space. The pricing is becoming aggressive - certainly for peak movements you can find they are pretty much inline with (or better than) a 'Low Cost' airline. Both from my experience, and from recent comparisons in the press.

So, BA is chasing these customers, even if they are not the ideal profile.


What is it's customer service policy for those customers?

Taking things like safety as read, cancellation or delays figure highly in customer's minds, so I've started there...


Cancellation or Delay - Airline's Fault.

BA - Officially no refunds, however refunds may be issued in some circumstances, only if you choose not to fly. If the issue involves an overnight stay, you may get a hotel. [I say 'may', but if it's a published policy, I'll amend that to 'will'.]

Easyjet - A delay of four hours will entitle you to a refund. You may still choose to fly (and use the refund to contribute towards an overnight stay if necessary)


Cancellation or Delay - Not Airline's Fault.

BA - Officially no refunds or compensation, however refunds may be issued in some circumstances, and only if you choose not to fly.

Easyjet - Normally a delay of four hours will entitle you to a refund. You may still choose to fly (and use the refund to contribute towards an overnight stay if necessary). A recent exception was the ATC failure, where Easyjet did not offer refunds.


Before we go on, is the above correct?