We were barred from entering the terminal
MOIRA Kerr, from Oban, describes her experience of the BA IT meltdown. We decided to skip the breakfast we had paid for at our posh London hotel to reach Heathrow in good time for our scheduled flight to Glasgow yesterday.
With no one answering the BA customer service phones and no flight status information on their website, we splashed out £50 for a taxi to the airport with no way of knowing if our flight had been cancelled or not.
My husband was definitely not amused to see queue after queue of passengers waiting outside terminal 5, with the entrance doors all taped off and guarded by stoney-faced BA staff.
There were people in wheelchairs and mums wanting to buy food for their babies but everyone was barred, with no entry for anyone until 90 minutes before their flight.
You had to see the funny side when BA sent guys outside to hand out water despite there being no toilets outside.
Enter an airport security guy to abruptly tell everyone to disperse from the entrance – disperse to where exactly?
When we eventually were allowed inside, stress levels soared as we queued at check-in.
One distressed woman said she had been stuck there for hours and was now going to miss her nana’s funeral.
A massive screen informed passengers they must leave the airport and re-book if their flight had been cancelled.
After being rushed to the front of the queue for fear we missed our flight, then rushed through security, we found our plane delayed not once, but twice. And, as I write, I’m still stuck at Heathrow.
My husband’s message to BA is: “Keep your customers informed of what’s going on and never turn them away or lock them out of the airport.”