British Air -- the saga continues

British Air sent me a letter.

On their website it costs 120,000 'miles' to get a ticket to Shanghai. They offered me 10,000. No other perks.

If they screw up 4 more times in the next year I'll be able to fly to England on BA. (England costs 50,000 'miles'.)

They suck.FIRST OFF.... the 'inconvenience b/c of snow' wasn't the major problem. Read my posts to get up to speed. They really crapped up the crowd management thing and made the delay awful rather than a pain in the tuchas.

SECOND OFF....they should have been more generous regardless of whether they wanted to admit their mistakes. (OR is corporate even aware of the mistakes...)

THIRD OFF... there are other blogs out there that are doing the same thing-- I think we'll start making a list

I'll keep posting all written correspondence from BA.

This could be so easy for them. Here is what the Merrow Sewing Machine Co. would do if we were in the position they are.

1st. Ask the customer what they want.... Mea Culpa, it's our fault, we want you and your family and your grandkids to fly MSMC (BA...) so what do we need to do?
-----now the customer might MIGHT offer something outrageous... but chances are they'll say something like 'a ticket or two somewhere to replace the one you fouled up and upgrade my 'status' with BA for the next year so I can check in first class and be upgraded if seats are available.' ------

2nd. Give them a little more than they asked for. This is rule number 2. If you're in the business of damage control offering more makes you pretty impervious to criticism.

3rd. Ask that they schedule future trips on MSMC to allow MSMC to make it all back up to them.

Think of the future money BA can make.

For instance. I am flying to Shanghai on March 4th, then again on April 4th, and then Again of May 15th or so.

If I were the CEO of BA i'd want my business. I'd work hard to get it. I'd offer me all sorts of incentives to get back on those BA airplanes.... and stop blogging about how horrible the customer service at BA is.....

GIVE A LITTLE, GET A LOT.

One week -- Two things

1st. British Air has not returned my email
2nd. the 'flu' alluded to below was infact a week on the disabled list

I'm back.

With the lions share of the responsibilities of the trip behind me, our focus now is to follow up with people met and projects begun.

I'll keep this current as we map out the next trip, and this time include the blog in the plotting process.

British Air

In light of the crushing travel issues in China, and the absolute poverty and suffering I saw in India there should be little margin for a post about the 48 hrs. it took get from Shanghai to London on BA.

and for full disclosure I'm staying in a hotel that is being paid for by BA (second night in a hotel paid for by BA)

But this isn't going to address the inconvenience of travel. Travel is often a pain in the ass.

British Air doesn't respect their passengers and mismanaged 200 people to the point that it could have been dangerous. This is the issue. It should be addressed by their customer service people, by the passengers and by their competitors.

Long queues with no communication. Long delays without any explanation. Little Children and babies waiting in the back of these lines with no attention or priority. People rescheduled on a first come basis without anybody even asking if there were urgent needs.

And no one was apparently in charge. Let me repeat this, no one was apparently in charge.

Whether one presumes the flight grounded by weather or BAs ineptitude (see below) is irrelevant. And for anyone from BA reading this please be clear -- the travel time doesn't matter.
They could have paid ONE person to just make sure that everyone knew exactly what was going on and to move people that needed more help to front of lines.

Obviously they didn't. But the simple solution has an asymmetrical relationship to the size of the problem. There was a crowd of 200 odd people who were tossed around for 2 days without anyone managing the situation. This is awful. People were wildly upset for things that hours later turned out were rumor.

200 odd people is a mob if they get upset. 200 people is a mess if it's not organized. And BA allowed this very preventable situation from devolving into relative chaos. And even then I think the crowd was really really well behaved.

And in great contrast to the relative restraint shown by the passengers -- 40hrs. into this process the CAPTAIN (in his one and only appearance) had the balls to announce to that if anyone was rude to the staff they could walk to london.

He seriously said this. Come on.

Managing people in airplanes and airports is the business of British Air. Blaming weather for the issues is misdirection. The management of their customers when things went wrong is their responsibility.

Let me put it a different way. How could that same flight crew manage a real crisis if they couldn't even manage to keep people in a line in Shanghai?

Makes you wonder if the certainty with which they cross-check and handle tray tables is all just an elaborate ruse.


For my money I'll wait to hear from BA -- to see if they give a toss about whether I ever fly on their airline again. The cost to me was significant and I haven't focused on this b/c it really isn't the pt. (but would it have killed you BA to not have been complete assholes when asked if I could get an upgrade for the flight to Boston... apparently everyone was told no as well...)

I bet that if BA had simply respected the passengers and shown a little backbone in Shanghai most of us would just shrug it off...

But they didn't, and I Blog and people talk. Thousands of people now read this Blog (i'm just as surprised as you) -- To point out the obvious it's 2008 and you can't get away being horrible at your business without people taking note and talking about it

You want to know how bad it is at Heathrow -- even the CUSTOMS agent was upset about BA... the customs agent!

So what are you going to do BA? What are your customers worth to you?

I'll be more than happy to post your response.

Regards,
Charlie Merrow

Dirty airplane underbelly

Three dozen 747s -- they all look the same from the ground as they take off.

My unique perspective has been sponsored by British Air. A day at the PuDong airport! Next we'll spend time in the Parking Lot!

What frustrates me is not that i'm here. Here is ok as described below. BUT it appears that the 17:30 Flight has been delayed or canceled.

I would have rather spent a day enjoying Shanghai (hell i'd rather have spent a day in the hotel if push comes to shove) and come in tomorrow or tuesday when they were reasonably sure we'd fly.

BA hauled us out of bed at 5AM, made us wait in a queue for 3hrs. to get EXACTLY the same ticket we had yesterday (it's even dated feb.2!). And then sit in an airport that isn't a treat to sit in for 9hrs. AND -- AND they haven't bothered to offer any information today, so that our treat of treats was seeing our evening flight float up on the leaderboard with delayed// then canceled// then delayed flash next to it.

as i heard a Brit on the flight mutter 'bollocks'

I'm not saying i'll never fly BA again. But i'll make an earnest effort to find any means of transportation besides BA the next time I come to shanghai.

is BA cut out for China

This morning I can SEE this plane, but it will not be cleared for departure until 17:35 (11 hrs. from when we arrived today).

While I thank them for the hotel, British Air was really quite awful managing the delay. Almost no communication from BA-- the staff look beleaguered and I feel for them some, but the passengers look worse.

The conjecture is that the very thin BA staff (8 people? ).... has zippo yank in Shanghai. The Brits seem to be put last in line for just about everything. Including De-Icing which was the final nail in the coffin yesterday.

200 some people have put up with a lot of waiting and almost no communication. There wasn't a BA person to be found when questions came up. Think of the 50 odd pissed off first and business class travelers who pay huge money to ride up front. By the looks of it many won’t fly BA again, or at least not without trying to book someone else.

Im fine with handling delays and all that-- travel is often bumpy and inconvenient-- but in the semi-final anaysis (we're still not leaving) this crowd is getting angrier and angrier and no one from BA seems aware... BA should learn how to do business in Shanghai, or they should close down the meager operation they offer.

Live from Shanghai

Weather has quickly stopped being the story. the story is people.

stranded people.
I'm with tens of thousands now trying to find aircraft to leave china.


There are 170 million trying to find a train/car/bus etc. to get home. The systems that usually manage this have been swamped.

Moreover it seems like this is acceptable. No public accountability i've seen. TV news doesn't even show the mess, I read about it from the new york times.

But I can see it in living color now. This morning the commute to the airport was 2 -1/2 hrs. We were stuck in monster traffic jams as people inched towards home or the airport or the train station.

The airport is jammed with people. (and PuDong is a pretty crap airport in the grand scheme....)

This said, and despite the length of the trip ahead, i've got it easy compared to most everyone else trying to get from pt. A to B today.

Snow in Shanghai

Millions are put out. Millions saved for months to afford a train ticket home for new year, and have been left at the station.

I took some pleasant pictures before I heard of the horror show that is the transportation system (though I can't upload pictures -- for some reason. )

My flight was canceled.
Now i'm one of the Millions.

But at least i'm in an airport and reasonably sure that if I wait long enough i'll be able to get home.

China's been undone by a bit of snow, go figure.