What absolute tosh!
Over 37 years my baggage has been delayed once.

People do come up with excuses, e.g.:
Sitting in exit seats on LoCo for which we'd paid extra, pax boards, looks at our seats and begins to complain about 'bad legs, have to sit on exit seat' etc. Hostie, who'd heard it all before, smiled and directed aforementioned pax to allocated seat.
Sob story from pax on my flight. Heavy crew (two of us) gave up rest seats to pax. Subsequently discovered all was not quite as related to CSD.:*

Basil
 

Check BA's bag stats over the years - very poor. You've been very lucky. By way of example of the opposite extreme, BA managed to not transport my bags with me on three successive trips to Scotland. Bad enough in and of itself, but made worse by what was clearly a lack of interest that the problem actually existed. The attitude is fostered by knowing that the person actually suffering is locked in by virtue of corporate travel policies that they don't control, and hence threats to go elsewhere are empty ones. Like I say, 41% of slots at LHR is the real problem, and one that no government has any appetite or incentive to resolve.

We stopped flying BA about 8 years ago. I do remember that on three consecutive single sector trips they lost my son's pushchair.

The second time it happened, when we gave the lady our address for it to be delivered, it turned out that she lived round the corner from us. She took it upon herself to drive round, after her duty finished, with one from her own household which she lent us until ours arrived. I wrote to BA as I wanted her thoughtfulness and kindness to be on record. I never even got a reply.

Unfortunately the other two events were handled with a total lack of interest and sympathy.

These mixed reports of good and bad from BA are typical of what I have heard over the last years. The question will be whether they can move towards more good than bad. Since they have moved from lots of good to a fair bit of bad - the likelihood is that they are moving down the scale.

On the other hand, they could defy all other large corporations that have gone before and resuscitate their service and sales.

JayPee28bpr and Capetonian,

I'm sorry to have dismissed your complaint in a cavalier manner and agree that it is particularly unacceptable to treat disadvantaged passengers in an offhand way.

When I was in BA there was a company policy of 'Service recovery', that is to say that errors should be handled in a manner which would leave the offended passenger with a higher opinion of the company than they would have had even if no error had occurred in the first place.
Back then I carried overburdened ladies coats, fixed the vacuum toilets on the B744 (not nice) etc.

I regret the changes since then which you describe.

Bas.

When I was in BA there was a company policy of 'Service recovery', that is to say that errors should be handled in a manner which would leave the offended passenger with a higher opinion of the company than they would have had even if no error had occurred in the first place.

Exactly, but sadly this is very much something of the past.

As far as I can make out, the problem is not the staff, but the management/bean counters who have removed all the capability of staff being able to use their initiative. For example, in the First Class Lounge in T5, apparently they can no longer do changes to tickets which they used to be able to do. It seems that BA staff are increasingly frustrated by this removal of their ability to help customers.

As far as BA bags stats are concerned, my wife did have a problem some years back, and got £150 voucher after complaining. My biggest problems have been in transfers between an internal flight and BA at CDG. Even with 4-1/2 hours, they couldn't manage it - and I don't blame BA for that. So far, I've flown BA 28 times this year so far, and not lost a bag yet.....Yes, this is aksing for trouble!

There still is.
We as in charge crew members used to be able to offer 'Service Recovery' in the form of a gift from our inflight sales but that has now ceased for various reasons.
However, I have arranged for a gift to be sent directly to the customer by contacting Customer Relations by way of an apology on a few occasions in the past, where the customer has had the experiences related here. This used to be anything from airmiles, bottles of wine, and flowers. The same I believe, still apllies on the ground.
If I felt as a SCCM that a customer has been mishandled, I still do it and of course there is always the facility to upgrade the customer with the consent of the Captain and only for a commercial reason.

Capetonian,
Some of us still go 'beyond the call' of duty for our customers, within the line of duty.:)

I am glad to hear that, unfortunately I've not had the pleasure of experiencing this since I've only flown once with BA in the last 8 years or so and the reports I'm hearing do not make me inclined to increase that frequency.

I do feel sorry for people like you, and many of my friends who work for BA, who clearly do care, but there are too many who don't.

Capetonian,
I am truly sorry for the experiences you've had with us re-your son's lost pushchair. It was nice of you to write and thank the member of ground staff who was incredibly kind to do what she did. Equally, it would also have been nice for her to have seen the nice gesture from yourself in taking the time to write.
Perhaps in the future, it may be an idea to write to Willie Walsh himself in extreme and exceptional cases. Based on personal experience where a customer on one of my flights wrote to him directly very recently, he does read the letters which do get then get a response as well.

Now please don't all rush to write to Willie Wash at once!

I'd just add to Capetonian's points that I've never had a bad experience with BA staff in the air, where service levels have ranged from satisfactory to "above and beyond". Problems begin and end on the ground. This includes flight booking, eg totally unrealistic transfer times between terminals assumed, meaning that to get a realistic one it is necessary to book BA long haul and non-BA operated (but BA code shares) connecting flights separately, lost bags (very much a "not our problem" attitude), and rude check in staff (though I only ever experienced that at JFK where rudeness appears to be a general job requirement).

Tiramasu,
thanks for that.
Anyone from BA groundstaff got some facts to add to this? Are you now prevented from doing "service recovery"??

Last year I flew from Brisbane to Norway for a simulator trip. Went Bris-Sing-Frank with Qaintass. Eurowing to Stavanger. On the way home I went via Heathrow T4 as I was code share with BA. As a gold card with OneWorld I went to the T4 lounge. CRAP ! It was a awful, like something from a communist state in the 70's, tatty carpet, no food or drinks and nothing to watch read. There was only 4 of us in there. To be far to BA, I did get an upgrade to Biss for the leg to Singapore, great flight, great service on board far better than Qaintass.

I am flying to Scotland in Dec with the kids with BA rather than Qaintass for most of the legs because I prefer BA longhaul.