THE CITY GRUMP
At the risk of making you all seethe with jealousy, Mission Control and I are just back from a top hole holiday (including safari) in South Africa. First overseas holiday since I broke free of cancer and a DVT. But don’t worry because British Airways did their absolute level best to kill the joy as we came into their tender loving care at Johannesburg Airport.
Being terribly British we arrived at the BA check-in desk just as it was opening. The gum-chewing clerk, without a trace of interest said “World Traveller Plus (that’s Premium Economy to you and me) is overbooked, you’ll have to go economy.” A vision of Little Britain’s TV sketch “the computer says no” swam before my eyes. Needless to say, the Grump erupted. I will spare you the grisly details but here below you will find highlights of BA’s priceless written reply to my complaint together with my reaction back to them.
Their communication opens with: “We are sorry to hear that our staff attempted to downgrade you during check-in due to overbooking”. Really? Following my tweet at the Airport about such, an ex BA employee got in touch to say in her day it was absolutely not Company policy to downgrade and we should have only been offered upgrading or compensation. Indeed we requested an upgrade from the gum-chewing clerk, who presumably thought she was actually at a Los Angeles Police Department check-in instead of being a BA representative, but she announced that she had no authority to grant such and could only ring London. Circa 10 minutes later, with no one in London picking up the phone (perhaps they all WFH at the weekend and are too busy watching daytime television?) she understandably gave up. Later on I discovered that Johannesburg check-in is sub-contracted out, which I find extraordinary as this is one of the, if not the most, profitable BA routes.
The reply went on, “Some of the issues can take longer, because we need to research the right solution before we can make a change – either to our aircraft or terminals or in the way we serve our customer.” This is First Class corporate waffle. The fact is we paid months ago for these seats, I am recovering from Stage 3 cancer and a DVT arising from treatment of that cancer, hence wanting seats with more leg room. Why should I be remotely interested in your internal goings on?
“Although no words of mine can change what happened, but I am genuinely sorry for the problems we have caused”. Words are cheap, BA. I am not interested in cheap.
“I can assure you that your feedback has made a difference. I’ve shared your comments with my colleagues in the relevant team to help us learn from this and improve in future.” We are not interested in being your guinea pigs, BA, so that your staff might observe our plight and do better in future. We want something that benefits us now.
I strongly suspect the “I can assure” bilge has been written by an AI Chatbot. Surely no human BA employee could have the cheek to write this nonsense?
Two hours later we arrived at the departure gate to be told we had been reinstated. I had no idea that paying many hundred pounds for a bit more leg room would involve our national flag carrier sending us on a mental assault course.
I await the next instalment, and hopefully not an AI one at that.
The City Grump has spent some 40 years in the City of London. He started as a stockbroker’s analyst but after some years he decided he was too grumpy to continue with the sell side of things so he moved to the buy side and became a fund manager for the next 20 years, selling his own business in the 1990s. Post the millennium, he found himself in turn chairing a stockbroker, a financial PR company, and an Exchange. He still keeps his hand in, chairing a brace of VCTs and investing personally in start-ups. The City Grump’s publications are available here.