2018 was a turbulent year for UK air travel, with BA grounded, BA for breakfast, BA data problems and BA Ibiza cancelled, but some lucky punters (and Tory former MP) Antony Addison, 76, defied the odds to fly from London to the Cádiz, Spain, one week before the General Election. The BA flight was one of nine he decided to book and it was the only BA fare he could afford. “I jumped on the phone and demanded to speak to a BA employee and was told to ring me back to talk to the controller because he would be on duty that day,” Addison explains. “The problem was that he was out drinking the newsagent’s late that evening so I called British Airways’ customer service when they picked up the next day and they put me through to the supervisor who gave me a very bad explanation as to why I could not fly.”
I call British Airways
I speak to another BA customer services department
The answer then comes back
“Antony the flight is cancelled”
“I said what?”
I fly instead
Now I feel a flutter
I decide to fly
How often do I fly”
With, like, the same BA flight at the same time as the so-called single most expensive pay day of the year
Let me grab my suitcase and book a different BA flight
Like a four-day weekend! “I contacted BA where I spoke to the Customer Service department who took my details, put me through to some other BA computers and explained my options,” Addison says. “The first option was having a voucher worth £100 for the inconvenience over three days to £5.25 for over a week.” BA then suggested Addison call holiday website Travelocity. “I rang them to book a flight from Heathrow to San Sebastian in Spain and they sent me a 15 minute complimentary mobile call so I could speak to someone else and ask their questions,” he says. “The representative showed me their travel card system and said BA was offering me a £15 voucher instead of an apology.”
By the time Addison had booked the flight, BA had, by his account, cancelled it, but by this point, he had already had a 17-hour wait on hold for his “account” to work and the BA customer services people on the phone were, he says, “fairly useless”. He had already missed his flights to Ibiza and was too late to use his BA voucher. He headed to the airport anyway, bought another BA ticket and flew in the morning. “Unfortunately, I ended up not getting on the plane when it landed in Spain after BA’s technical error sent 1,150 flights into chaos,” Addison says. “On the train, when travelling through Paris, I spoke to another BA representative who simply said to keep my wallet with cash to get to the airport.” After getting a knock on the door from someone waiting to pick him up from the airport, Addison decided to share some of his BA experience with a fellow passenger on the train, whom he later learned, had been a leading childminder.