The Return From Beijing

As with my flight to Beijing on British Airways, my return flight to London had a number of shortcomings that the executive team at BA need to address:

• The opening news video shown on channel 1, on the ancient inflight "entertainment" system, had no sound. I was advised that this was a fault with the tape, and that nothing could be done about it.



• The picture quality on all channels was not that good/clear.



• Again, no chutney with the curry. Come on guys, at least you can get this right!



• The sandwich selection was hardly inspiring; cheese and tomato, or ham. Both of these were offered on somewhat dry white bread, that had been buttered only on one side.

The BA executive team need to take a leaf out of the late Lord King's book, and start to travel in all classes of their fleet of planes in order to meet their customers. Lord King did this, when BA was recognised as a leading world brand, it is high time that the current executive of BA did the same.

The value of BA lies in:

-Its routes
-The quality of its on board infrastructure
-The quality of its staff

The latter two qualities are being seriously neglected by the executive team at British Airways, resulting in severe damage to the brand value of the company and an increase in customer dissatisfaction.

It is time that the executive team at BA addressed these issues, in order to reverse the damage that it has inflicted on its brand value and customer loyalty.

The Flight to Beijing

I took my flight from London to Beijing today, regrettably many of the issues that I had raised before with Britsh Airways had not been addressed:

• The "passenger infrastructure" on the plane was worn and dated. Seat 2F near to my seat needed two crew members to physically perform a mid air repair, in order for the head rest section to work.



• The menu offered soup, yet none was actually available. Why? Seemingly the soup was never delivered to the plane, as it could not get through security in time! This is more than a little odd, as the plane was 30 minutes late for boarding.



• Again, despite telling BA before about this, there was no chutney onboard for the curry. I made do with marmalade.



• The cabin temperature was too cold.



• The crew were helpful and courteous. However, those that I spoke to confessed that they were fed up with having to apologise to customers for the failures of the company to meet the expectations of the customers.



• I understand that the much lauded "roll out" of the new cabins and in flight entertainment systems has hit a snag. Seemingly there is one British Airways plane crossing the Atlantic that has an in flight entertainment system that does not work. That must make an "amusing" six hours for the hapless customers onboard that particular flight!



• The inflight entertainment system was good 15 years ago, but now looks dated and well past its prime. The roll out of the new system needs to be completed with haste.

BA need to understand that the customers, and indeed the staff, are fed up with the ongoing quality issues.