Share your BA shut-down experiences …. and BA adds £16 to Expedia etc bookings

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• GRAHAM THOMAS says:

  28 May28 May 07:48

  It’s an absolute shambles, all call centres unavailable. My.BA is shockingly now selling tickets again. A one way tonight to Muscat (yesterday’s destination) is £1500pp, a return only £330pp so I now have seats tonight – in theory!! and six seats for 3 on the return date. No idea what to do now, do we travel to Heathrow or not?

  • Tony says:

    28 May28 May 07:59

    Staff are not allowing people into T5 at the moment unless you’re booked on a flight departing within the next hour and half. Good luck.

• Nick says:

  28 May28 May 08:06

  Unbelievable that BA don’t have back up systems in place with data replicated in other data centres and that they don’t use centres with backup power supply. Presumably a result of Mr Cruz’ cost cutting. This is not going to be good for IAG plc stock price on Monday. Will it be the death knell of the hapless Mr Cruz’ tenure at BA? Off topic, I was amused by the Cabin Service Director’s anouncement re BOB on a flight from LHR to Rome last week. Having described the M&S products in a rather sarcastic tone, he then announces that passengers can only by by card or with Avios and adds “Its what we are told to call a cashless system – but some would call a clueless system!” It put a smile on passengers faces! Marvellous that the BOB fiasco has reached a stage where the airlines own staff are prepared to ridicule this particular service enhancement over the tannoy on board.

• Oz says:

  28 May28 May 08:12

  Terrible management of the whole situation by British Airways staff at Zurich airport yesterday. I knew there was a problem on Friday night, as I tried to check-in online about 11pm for a flight the following day (Sat 27 May) and was not allowed as system was “very busy”. Spoke to the call centre and they said that it was “scheduled maintenance” and that I should not worry, but try again in two hours!

  Went to Zurich airport on Saturday and checked in no problem for BA 715 ZRH to LHR at around 13:00 for a 15:45 departure. Staff at check-in desk said everything was fine and were gladly accepting passenger bags and issuing boarding passes. Our flight said it was on time right up until about 15 mins AFTER departure time, when it was cancelled on the screens. No BA staff came down to inform us of any issue.

  We all then had to scramble around to find a BA rep, who told us:

  1. Systems are all down so nobody can be re-booked / re-routed
  2. Systems are all down so no vouchers can be issued for food or accommodation
  3. Systems are all down so getting checked bags back to people is going to be a serious problem
  4. We should feel free to book our own onward flights with Swiss Airways etc. using our own funds and we can claim for these costs from BA afterwards

  I asked a BA supervisor to put point 4 in writing for us, but they refused and simply handed out a standard EU 261 form.

  Meanwhile, I walked back to the check-in desk and BA were still checking people in and taking their bags for the 18:40 to LHR! I had to tell all these poor people not to hand over their bags, as they would not be able to get them back once BA inevitably cancelled the flight later on and left them stranded in Zurich! It seems that I had more information via Twitter than the BA check-in desk representatives had.

  The whole situation was atrociously handled by British Airways, all the way from the lies about “routine maintenance” from the BA call centre down to leaving their front line staff with no information, and making no effort to inform passengers that their flights were going to be cancelled until after departure time!

  Thank god for Amex Platinum and Swiss Airways!

• Paul Hampton says:

  28 May28 May 08:18

  Family of 5 here and we had a rollercoaster of a day at Manchester Airport yesterday. We were checked in to depart on the BA Cityflyer service to Nice, which became delayed due to the late arrival on inbound aircraft from Alicante.

  Unlike other BA flights we were assured that our aircraft would depart and some 2 hours later, with the aircraft finally on the stand, ground staff began manual bag and ticketing procedures.

  All looking good until, but then nothing for another hour and with the one ground staff flapping, the captain came to address us and inform that a member of crew was sick on board and medically unfit to fly. Their efforts to obtain a replacement were being hampered by the IT outage and they would continue to try. My suggestion to use the spare crew from the 3 other BA flights that had been cancelled in the last half hour was declined.

  Finally, after another hour or so, they cancelled the flight and with 3 very upset children, we were taken back through passport control to collect our bags and join the melée at the BA check in area where we were told they could rebook or reroute via other airlines.

  This was also badly handled because due to the systems outage, it was not possible to look at these options, nor was it possible for anyone to transfer us onto let arlines with capacity to at least get us into France. Similarly, they could not arrange hotel accommodation or tell us whether to stay in the hope systems would recover or go.

  I too was given the letter which in essence said ‘every man for themselves’ and looked at hotels at the airport where the family could rest, while I would stay at the airport until the systems were available. In the meantime, other travellers took matters into their own hands, seizing the final seats on Air France, FlyBe etc in order to get closer to their final destination.

  There were no hotels available at the airport, so I had to instruct the valet parking guys to retrieve our car and we went home, where I would spend 90 minutes waiting to get through to BA, who have booked us on a flight via LHR tomorrow. I am apprehensive about this because although these seats are held, it seems Manchester ground staff haven’t officially offboarded us yet. So no doubt more hours on the phone today to get the tickets issued.

  There is also the complication of car hire. We are on a BA holidays booking with an automatic Mercedes booked at NCE. I need assurances from BA and Avis that they will be able to honour this booking and they were not in a position to do so last night.

  If there are any insurance or compensation experts on this thread I would appreciate your advice on how to proceed and what we are entitled to receive. My bank account bundled travel insurance told me that anything they pay would be net of anything BA paid out. I don’t think this is correct, but right now the priority is just to salvage some of our holiday and if all goes to plan we will arrive at our resort some two days late.

  • Rob says:

    28 May28 May 11:00

    Your insurance payout is net of what BA pays, yes (exc EU261).

    BA will not pay for indirect costs, eg pre booked hotels, as you are expected to have travel insurance for that.

    If BA claims ‘act of God’ to avoid 261 then technically your travel insurer could do the same.

    • Paul Hampton says:

      28 May28 May 11:33

      Thanks, Rob. It was a marginal call to accept the 48hr delay rather than cancel altogether. For the sake of their reputation I hope goodwill extends beyond the 261 obligations, otherwise for many it will be the last time they choose BA.

• Rose says:

  28 May28 May 08:20

  Five hours at T5 yesterday – lack of information was appalling. We queued for bag drop for 3 hours only to be told at the very front that ‘you are too late will miss the plane – go to zone E to rebook.’ This was obviously misinformation as no flights left all day. Zone E was unmanned by any BA staff and after further 2 hour wait unable to get through on call centre we made our own arrangements.
  We originally booked the 2 together Qatar business from Oslo to Male using BA to fly to Oslo yesterday. No alternative flights to Oslo so only thing we could do is change to economy from Lon to Male today on Qatar losing the business flight out and paying an extra £1000. Any advice as to whether we can claim this back from BA? What is One World alliance worth if they aren’t working as one!

  • Mark says:

    28 May28 May 09:06

    Your credit card is your friend.

  • Rashad says:

    28 May28 May 14:34

    I had to put a claim in when we have missed connection flight from Oslo to London as QR Flight from Doha was delayed 6 hours due to torrential rains. Amex Platinum insurer AXA informed me that I can make £350 worth claim per person

• Peter says:

  28 May28 May 08:20

  Questions should be asked why it took BA so long to confirm to travel agents that refunds were allowable for passengers booked to travel on 27 May. The first communication from BA Trade Support came in at 1551 confirming refunds allowable for passengers booked to travel on short haul flight; the email confirming refunds were allowed for long haul flights didn’t arrive until 1803!

  • Derek Scott says:

    28 May28 May 08:37

    Maybe BA didn’t notify Trade earlier as they had no systems to do it with?!?

• Mike says:

  28 May28 May 08:27

  All NHS dentistry management online -from submitted treatment claims to pension entitlement was outsourced to Capita a couple of years ago.
  It has without question been an unmitigated disaster to the point most dentists refer to them as Crapita and the system called Compass as Compost
  It is unintuitive,
  Newly qualified dentists with jobs to start were delayed for 4 months from doing so because of Capitas systems failures denying patients treatment and newly qualified dentists with £100 000 of student debt were unable to earn anything.
  I rang two weeks ago because I couldn’t get their online system to respond as it should. Whilst the lady I spoke to was very pleasant she couldn’t help but would talk to someone more senior and get back to me. I’m still waiting.
  Capita are an unmitigated disaster.
  B.A. KEEP IT IN HOUSE

  • Nate1309 says:

    28 May28 May 09:27

    Haha Compass is sooooo awful! Makes you wish we had Portal back!

• Ineverturnright says:

  28 May28 May 08:32

  First lets put things in perspective in light of recent terrible events : we had our holidays disrupted. We are lucky to have holidays.

  Second my flight was cancelled yest. I managed to get through to the BA gold line team who held the same flight out today and back on weds, effectively moving my holiday back a day. Need to call them today to fully process the change and have them sort out the hotel (booked via BA too)

  Means 1 extra day off work, paying change fees on things booked today that will now have to be done on Weds, and probably a lower value holiday (I’m sure a sat to tues trip was priced a premium vs a sun to weds at time of booking).

  Obviously will explore all avenues with BA and insurance but I suspect I will just have to write a lot of it off to experience.

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