BETRAYED BY BA
The only consolation for hundreds of families when British Airways left them stranded was the promise they wouldn’t be left out of pocket. But as one Mail writer caught up in the fiasco reveals, it was just the start of the nightmare
STANDING in the airport departure lounge, surrounded by scenes of despair, Francesca Pearce began to cry.
After months spent planning her best friend’s hen weekend to Amsterdam, she and her fellow partygoers’ dreams of sipping prosecco by the city’s canals and staying in their pre-paid, bijou hotel were becoming more distant by the minute.
Four hours after arriving at Heathrow, the party of eight learned their fate: their British Airways flights were cancelled. As a result of the airline’s now infamous ‘system outage’ seven weeks ago, their eagerly awaited trip was over.
Astonishingly, the problems seem to have been caused by an it worker accidentally turning off the power supply, prompting the shut-down of BA’s entire system.
the women’s anger, however, was tempered by the conviction that they would at least get their money back. ‘We were sure British Airways would reimburse us after making such a massive mistake,’ says Francesca.
But as of today — nearly two months on from the calamitous May 27 weekend which caused travel chaos for some 75,000 passengers — the friends have yet to receive any money, thwarted by a complex compensation system and an elusive customer services department.
in fact, it was only when this newspaper got involved with their case, that the airline seemed to show interest in their plight.
‘Communication has been terrible from the start and i won’t be flying with British Airways again,’ says Francesca, 27, from London.
She and her friends are far from the only ones reeling from the aftermath of the worst technical crisis in the airline’s recent history. Nearly 800 flights were cancelled — including my own — on what was not only the start of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, but the beginning of half-term and one of the airline’s busiest days of the year.
Honeymoons and holidays were missed, a wedding postponed and desperately- ill passengers left stranded on runways or separated from medication in their suitcases.
BRITISH Airways assured customers it would ‘fully honour’ its obligation to compensate. But almost two months on and it seems the company is buckling under the weight of its promise.
Some of those who have had their flights reimbursed, meanwhile, complain they have had expenses claims unfairly cut.
it is a monumental Pr disaster for what was once considered the nation’s favourite airline, whose parent company, international Airlines Group, made a record £144 million profit in the last quarter.
And it comes at a time when BA is already struggling to deal with staff strikes over pay disputes and a backlash from their decision to scrap free food and drink in economy class from this January.
‘ Despite British Airways being voted the best airline in the world in 2006, by 2016 they had dropped to 40th place,’ says aviation analyst Alex Macheras. ‘the majority of passengers i speak to now have more negative things to say about BA than positive.
‘Can their reputation bounce back? i don’t think so — and thousands of flyers feel they were not compensated adequately for something that was entirely BA’s fault.’
they are sentiments echoed by Francesca, who bought her group’s flights, costing £150 each, to Amsterdam this January. Francesca then paid £150 up front on two nights’ hotel accommodation for each hen and hundreds more on activities.
there was to be a prosecco cruise on the canal, a treasure hunt and a cycle ride for which 12 bikes had been hired. She put the approximate £4,000 cost on her husband’s credit card.
When the women arrived at Heathrow at 11am, they were greeted by mammoth queues and, after they had passed security, information boards devoid of information. Staff tried to flag delays on whiteboards. ‘ Everyone was panicked. We weren’t offered food and drink and there were no announcements,’ says Francesca, a communications consultant.
indeed, it was only from an online BBC report in the afternoon that the group discovered all flights from Heathrow and Gatwick due to depart before 6pm had been cancelled. ‘i cried,’ says Francesca. ‘ the whole trip had been my responsibility. All other airline flights were booked up. We had no way of making it.
‘But we weren’t the worst off. there was a mother with a disabled child distraught because she couldn’t access their medication in a suitcase already checked in.
‘A man was telling customer services that his visa had expired and he wasn’t legally allowed to be in the country.’
told the airport doors were locked as there were too many passengers trying to leave at
the same time, they were trapped until 6pm when, Francesca says, ‘a steward took pity on us and suggested we escape by taking a train to another terminal’.
That Tuesday she drafted a letter the hens sent detailing their expenses. ‘It took hours of digging to decipher where to send the letter to — there was no information on BA’s website,’ says Francesca.
Eventually, passengers were told they could claim online, after which each hen was emailed a case number. But six weeks passed and despite constant chasing they heard nothing.
My family’s 1.40pm flights from Gatwick to Lanzarote were also cancelled on May 27. My daughter, Rosie, six, and son Felix, four, were devastated and my husband Chris and I desperate to save our holiday. The nearest, and earliest, replacement flights we could find left Manchester at 6 am the next day — for £1,757.20.
After four hours waiting for our luggage to be returned we drove home to London and took a £235.75 train and taxi journey to Manchester, before spending the night in Manchester airport.
By the time we reached our hotel in Lanzarote the following lunchtime I was exhausted and sick at the expense, yet told myself it would all be worthwhile as we would be compensated. But while we were reimbursed £1,460 after a fortnight — around two thirds the cost of our original BA flights — I spent hours trying to claim money we’d spent on extra travel and compensation we were due.
Under EU regulations passengers are entitled to €250 compensation for flights up to 1,500 km; €400 for flights within the EU of more than 1,500km and other flights between 1,500km and 3,500km; and €600 for all other flights.
Passengers are also entitled to food and drink compensation, overnight accommodation and travel to and from the airport.
Plus, says Coby Benson, flight delay legal manager at Bott & Co legal firm, we are also entitled to reimbursement for the extra money we paid for our replacement flights.
‘If a flight is cancelled, an airline should offer free replacement flights. It’s a little known fact that it doesn’t have to be with the same airline,’ he says.
‘If a passenger booked a replacement by themselves they should cover the cost of that flight.’
Yet despite my frequent attempts to contact customer services, the only personalised correspondence I had received by the end of last week was a letter saying that in order to ‘look into’ my problems BA first need written permission from Chris, Rosie and Felix under the Data Protection Act.
Asking a four-year-old to sign a legal disclaimer felt ridiculous — and is, of course, nonsensical as I am his legal guardian anyway.
Those with legal representation may be faring better.
Benson — who estimates the fiasco could cost BA over £100 million — says that of up to 1,000 cases Bott & Co have dealt with, 30 per cent have been settled, and that BA have paid out all so far without unnecessary argument.
‘I wonder if that’s the difference between sending a solicitor’s letter and your average person writing in,’ says Benson.
QUITE. But many BA passengers can’t afford legal representation, having spent most of their money on their ill-fated holidays.
Charity fundraiser Sara Haffner was left almost £2,000 out of pocket after her family’s flights from Heathrow to South Africa were cancelled and she spent £3,700 on replacements with Virgin airlines.
‘I felt sick spending that amount of money,’ says Sara, 41, a single mother to Marco, nine, and Toby, six. ‘Why should I have to pay the price for someone pulling the wrong plug out?’
Sara — who’d saved up for 18 months to afford the £1,590 cost of her family’s flights for a safari, staying at a cousin’s lodge — only realised her 7.05pm flight to Johannesburg was cancelled when she arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5.
Sara, from London, saw there were seats left on a Virgin flight leaving at 8.30pm from Heathrow Terminal 3. ‘I had to call my mum and ask to borrow money but an urge to get there no matter what took over,’ says Sara.
Once in South Africa, she spent three days trying to assess how to claim compensation.
‘It cast a cloud over the holiday. The BA website kept crashing. I spent hours filling in forms. Nobody from BA called us. I’d chosen to fly BA through loyalty — I was such a regular customer I had a BA Amex card. But they didn’t care.’
By the end of June, Sara had received a refund for her BA flights and €600 (£527) compensation for each passenger in her party, but BA refused to pay her the difference in flight costs.
‘ I didn’t claim for any meal replacements or telephone or internet bills — all I wanted was the flight money,’ says Sara.
Alanna Allen has been left around £500 out of pocket after her flight home from Sardinia was cancelled on May 27. She was kept on the Italian island for an extra day and the airline refused to fully reimburse her expenses.
‘We spent the entire time online trying to work out how to get back and only spent what we needed to,’ says hair salon owner Alanna, 30, married to Daniel, 34, a driver.
She and Daniel were told their 7.25pm flight was cancelled ten minutes before it was due to go.
‘All the local hotels were booked so we had to stay in a hotel a 45-minute drive from the airport,’ says Alanna.
She and Daniel paid €213 (£187) for car hire, and ‘for dinner we ate a club sandwich and salad nicoise,’ says Alanna.
‘ We certainly weren’t being extravagant — but it was an expensive area and our full hotel receipt for accommodation and food that evening and the next day was €395 (£347). The whole time we were online trying to find return flights, or on hold or being cut off by BA customer services. It wasn’t as if we were enjoying ourselves.’
It was 4pm the next day before Alanna — who had been trying to get through since 6am that morning — spoke to a BA customer services operator who put her on a flight at 9.25pm that evening.
‘The mood among passengers was bitter, especially when those who hadn’t eaten had to pay for their dinner,’ says Alanna.
FOUR weeks later she received compensation, but it had been capped at £100 for her car hire, £100 for food and drink and £100 for hotel accommodation — around half her claim. ‘BA refused to pay for our £75 taxi home,’ she says.
Since contacting British Airways on Thursday and letting them know I was writing about my experience — and those of Francesca, Sara and Allana — I have been fully reimbursed and received a formal apology.
I have been told Francesca’s case is now being dealt with, but is taking longer to process because several cases need to be merged.
Sara has now been paid the difference her Virgin flights cost. I was told Alanna and Daniel have received EU compensation and expenses including hotel and transport, and reasonable costs for everything else.
A BA spokesperson said they had created a dedicated page for claimants on their website and added: ‘We have put additional resource into our customer relations teams, and thousands of payments have already been made to customers who have completed their claims.
‘We are processing claims as quickly as possible, and thank our customers for their patience.’