It was once "the world's favourite airline", but Dispatches asks if the sun is setting on another great British institution.
Statistics volunteered by airlines reveal British Airways has mislaid more bags per passenger than any of its major European rivals since 2006. In the past 18 months BA has been caught price-fixing and suffered a disastrous opening to Terminal 5 at Heathrow.
The film features figures suggesting BA has cancelled more flights than any of its main European competitors so far this year. At the most challenging crossroads in aviation history, Dispatches assesses the reputation of our national flag carrier.
Watch it via this link
i m a student in US. i planned a trip home. british airways was my choice and expectedly london had to be the transit airport. i realized that my student visa had expired and that was one of the reasons for my trip. it is legally ok to stay in US with expired visa as long as your i20 has some time left. my i20 had more than 1 year time left. but i was unaware that london needs a valid US visa to even enter their airport. even if you dont have to go through customs and even if you change planes within the same terminal, you need a visa which they call as DATV costing approx 200$. since i did not have this , i was not allowed to board the flight. i had to come back home disappointed. i was unaware of their visa rules, that is my bad.
ReplyDeletemy problem is that, once the british airways staff found out that i was also unaware of the visa procedure for UK, they told me that "visa can be done in 24 hours". saying this, they rescheduled me to a flight next day. they hardly gave me time to think or come out of the shock that i m not going home.
whereas i found out that it is actually a 2 stage process. 1 day they take biometrics of the person which costs nearly 100 $ and only a day after that can we actually apply for a visa in UK embassy.
so i called them back saying that i was misguided and lied to by the british airways staff. they did not care to address the problem. also they refused to cancel and refund my money. instead i was asked to pay 600$ extra to rebook on a later date (10 days later). if not end up loosing the 1500$ i had already paid them. is this what people call as holding someone to ransom ?
so i almost ended up with an air ticket 1000$ more than what i planned for. and 10 days of my precious time with family and friends lost.
i do understand that not having the documentation that they expected on that day, was my bad. why was i lied to and misguided by british airlines staff. is that my bad too ? am i being fined/punished 1000$ and 10 days because i had no idea of the time it takes for getting UK visa in USA.
is this the kind of behavior expected off airline staff ? i dont understand why any other airline would want to merge with BA.
i know of more people that had similar experiences with BA, obviously "There is something wrong".
What a load of shit ths site is
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