BA some nice feedback for a change
 

HI,
Those of you that remember me posting previously will no doubt remember how annoyed at BA i have been recently, this culminated with the disaster of a meal on the way back from Boston a couple of months ago.

The net result of this is that last time I booked my trip to Australia with Cathay rather than BA. Losing BA about 4k pounds. I did however say that I would give BA another chance with this trip to Boston.

Yesterday was the flight, and to be honest it was one of the best flights I have had with BA. The crew led by Sally were wonderful, the service was exceptional, the flight on time. The food was simply wonderful, it does look like BA are listening to the feedback, and giving premium service again.

I will of course reserve final judgement until the flight home.

Glad to hear (some of) your faith in BA has been restored - make sure you pass your gratitude onto the crew themselves:

British Airways - Customer compliments

Always use this route when going back to the UK, me for pleasure, Mrs J for work and pleasure. We have used BA, Virgin and AA but have found BA to be the best for us as have most of our friends and relatives who come out to visit us.

Had a slight snag with BA today connected via term 3 Heathrow to Gib.

Was told that despite being checked in from Orlando, we couldnt drop the 8 bags and Jnr's Buggy till 2 hours before the flight. Having come off the ocean with 2 young kids and the wifes best attempts to kick start the US economy with her xmas shopping i didnt relish the thought of 4 hours with the bags.

The nice lady supervisor Angela(based normally in T5) on hearing our plight arranged for our bags to go in early.

Superb service. Thank you :-)

Came back from Tampa with BA on 2/1 and have to say the crew were excellent too - ditto for outgoing flight on 17/12. Have passed on the necessary feedback on ba.com. :ok:

Would have been perfect if the food on the way out had been edible - coming back was great though. :sad:

I'm making the same trip in March - from what you have said, it looks like I need to stock up with M&S sandwiches on the outbound sector!

Crew tasks
 

Surprised on a BA118 BLR-LHR trip prior to Christmas when after boarding completed the Hostess requested the pax to close all the overhead bins dah.....
She was not short of muscle power as seen in the T5 arrival hall pulling two bags off the convey belt in one movement.

It passed my mind whether to go to the galley and make my own tea...

TW

Don't tell me you also had to buckle up your own seatbelt too :ugh:

Completely uncalled for comment.

It is very unusual for the crew to ask pax to do this.

No doubt the poor little love was completely overwhelmed by the stresses and strains of the new crewing arrangements.

Perhaps this story in the DT today gives some insight into the crew motivation

British Airways cabin crews pour vintage wine down sink in protest at changes - Telegraph

Bottles of wine and champagne that are opened for passengers have always been poured away prior to landing. Difficult to secure an open, almost full bottle.
Maybe crew should deny passengers their choice of wine unless they agree to polish off the whole bottle:)
As regards the washbags - why do people accept them, open them, have a rummage inside and then leave them on the seat or floor when they disembark, a polite refusal would not offend!
But then again there wouldn't be any scope for another sensationalist, inaccurate story would there:ugh:

I understand your point of view, Dollydaydream and was surprised that anyone would make an issue out of what has always been waste AFAIK.

However, the DT has quoted a BASSA member and it would be lacking in integrity, to say nothing of possible defamation to make up such a quote.

The Telegraph is not a red top and generally does not behave that way, also this article is from the Finance section, not normally noted for salacious stories.

It therefore seems to me to be probable that someone in BASSA did say this and that is why I passed my comment.

In fairness, surely these are 'consumables' that are factored into airlines' calculations? A few bottles of wine and a dozen or so comfort packs aren't going to fill the £1m-a-day losses that BA are experiencing.

MaxJet used to get round the "returns" problem by letting the CC distribute free bottles [unopened] to the pax of their choice - the OH and I got off once with 3 bottles!! :cool:

Tinwacker,

This is part of the standard boarding PA. And to be fair, it's your, (and that's a general "your"), often heavy hand luggage in there. Would it really hurt you to close the locker when you've finished putting your stuff in? I've lost count of the number of times I have struggled to shut one, whilst the big beefy bloke that has filled it, looks on without even attempting to help.

Can we not even have one little thread, that's for good comments about BA, without someone adding a complaint? There's plenty of the opposite type to put your criticisms on. I appreciate that it may be a fairly short thread, but it'd be nice, all the same. Please? :sad:

The worst types of lockers are the 777 ones as when you are closing them you are pushing the full weight of the contents of the locker up with only megre pneumatics in them. If a crew member had to close up to 20 of these per sector I can assure you that said crewmembers would have serious lower back problems and RSD in their wrists in later years all because they are clsoing lockers with someone elses stuff in it. We ask you to close the lockers for much the same reason that we do not place your baggage into the lockers.

I had to fill out an incident form over the summer because shortly after take off on a 777 my left wrist (and Im right handed before anyone starts suggesting naughty things) swelled up and was really painful as a result of closing lockers before take off despite following set down health and safety practices for doing such.

Its not really fair for passengers to assume crew members should lift luggage that is not their own...at the end of the day, you pack it you stack it!

I wince when I see passengers expecting everything to be done for them, and leaving their personal trail of mess. That's sadly today's society, I think.

Agreed. And agreed about those 777 bins....they can bite ya.

I have a general question about the crews on the 777 and 767. I do the Newark run about 10 times a year, sometimes on the 777, sometimes on the 767. (there are normally 3 flights a day, with the 767 coming into Newark late and then returning early next morning). Wherever I am siting on the 767 the CSD will always find me out for a chat and a paper....but never on the 777 when I'm down the back. Are they trained differently or am I just lucky with the 767s I fly?:ok:

Probably more people, less time to chat!

But now the CSD is working as part of the service so dont expect them to have any time to chat!

jetset ladyOK, a nice bite coming up that happened on a JNB~LHR in August of last year.

Asked for one particular meal serving (meat) and, at first bite realised that it was chock full of black pepper. Since I cannot abide even a single grain of such, I waited for the CC to pass back up the aisle and mentioned that there had been no mention of the black pepper. He took the meal away and brought the alternative meat dish that was great. I was in WT+ but presume that I would have been treated the same in WT. He was very polite and showed no sign of anything other than help. Gold Star.

Amusingly, on the CPT~JNB with BA's franchise Comair, they had two meat dish options (in economy, but that's because the route is hotly contested with five carriers!!) and BOTH were spicy. The South Africans like hot and spicy food so do not consider it strange to have two spicy and no plain dish. There was no alternative but it's a short sector.

On New Years day some friends flew back to the UK after visiting me over the Xmas period. Having checked in online they just went to the baggage drop at Boston Logan only to have the BA checkin person rip up their boarding passes. Then he said you don't want them you want these instead and gave them boarding passes for Club!!! (they had booked WT+).
Well done BA.:D

Lhr-cpt-lhr
 

We flew LHR-CPT 20 Dec '09 on BA59, returning 11 Jan '10 on BA58. J was full both ways yet we received excellent service each way from BA's very professional & friendly CC. I have already contacted BA with my report.

T-5 lounge continues to be a haven of calm & the new lounge in the new departure terminal at CPT is a vast improvement over the old one.

A sincere thanks to all concerned for making our special trip begin & end in such style. :ok: