BA To Beijing - Back In Blighty

I have now returned from my trip to Beijing (flying BA both ways).

Here, in summary, are my views about the experience of flying BA (London/Beijing return):

1 The cabin crew on both legs of the journey were friendly, polite, efficient and did their jobs well.

2 Despite Terminal 5 being billed as BA's dedicated terminal, the hapless passengers of the outward bound flight were forced to use a coach to get to the aircraft.

3 The coach journey necessitated passengers being called to the gate 1 hour before departure.

4 The coach journey took so long (in excess of 10 minutes) that it felt as though we were being driven to Beijing.

5 The in flight caterers had not packed enough shepherd's pies on board for the number of passengers in my cabin. There were 9 passengers but only 6 pies.

6 The in flight caterers had forgotten to load any potato dishes on board to accompany the main courses.

7 The return flight departure time from Beijing of 7:20 is absurd, necessitating my checking out from the hotel at around 4:45. Last year the departure time was around midday. Why on earth have BA picked such a ridiculous new departure time?

8 The in flight entertainment on the return flight was identical to the entertainment on the outward bound flight. Normally the selection is varied.

9 One of the lights above my seat was not working on the return journey. Small details like this show that due care an attention to the needs of the passengers are not being made.

10 The in flight survey on both outward and return legs of the journey was at great pains to ask for my opinion re the in flight entertainment. However, it asked no questions about service, food, or any other aspect of the flight. Do BA not want to know what their customers really think of them?

In conclusion, whilst the cabin crew do their best to provide a high standard of service, it is clear to me that the company has lost interest in the customer.

BA To Beijing

I am flying with BA to Beijing today.

Regrettably BA have altered the schedule of their daily Beijing flight. Going out I arrive at 6:00am Beijing time, and returning to London I leave Beijing at 7:20am.

Quite absurd times, why oh why didn't they keep to the old schedule which was far more sensible?

At least I will be back before anymore strikes occur.

The BA Strike, Unite, Willie Walsh et al

My return flight from Beijing yesterday gave rise to an interesting discussion with a member of BA staff, and indeed a number of observations about the "quality" of BA.

Seemingly, if the member of staff is to be believed, the much vaunted vote for strike action (due to start on 21 December and last during Christmas) was based on "misinformation" being disseminated by the BA union (Unite) to the staff; the staff member used the word "conned".

I am told that the staff were given to believe that the strike action would be a series of one/two day strikes, over a period of time, not a 12 day strike over Christmas.

Why would this be a problem?

Aside from the obvious issues of further destroying the BA brand, the other key problem would be the fact that BA staff themselves would find their Christmas flight plans "inconvenienced".

Ironically, despite the fact that staff tell me that Walsh is not respected (and by some staff loathed), the injunction stopping the strike has been in the best interests of the staff (who want to travel during Christmas).

Regarding my own experiences of the Beijing/Heathrow flight yesterday; here are a few observations:

1 It took off one hour late.

2 The pre meal canapes were foul, I spat one out into my napkin it was so bad.

3 The inflight sky phone did not work in my seat.

4 One of the back panels of another chair fell off during the flight.

5 The inflight TV (not movies) shows were the same as those shown on the outward journey to Beijing on Sunday.

6 The touch screen TV was filthy, and needed to be pressed very hard to actually function.

7 It took an interminable length of time for bags to appear on BA's "ultra efficient" baggage belt in Heathrow terminal 5.

8 There were no baggage carts, in view, at terminal 5 baggage reclaim.

From my biased perspective as a "passenger" (or as BA would have us believe "customer") the brand is tired, and the equipment/facilities in need of a serious overhaul/upgrade.

As a "national flag" carrier it is not something to be proud of.

Storm Clouds Ahead

Personnel Today reports that British Airways' (BA) new human resources director, Tony McCarthy, has been warned that he will face "long-term problems" if he cannot find a solution to the dispute over the airline's plans for a subsidiary, Open Skies, in mainland Europe.

The British Air Line Pilots Association (Balpa) are to ballot of its members this week, on whether to hold strikes over the plan.

The pilots do not like the BA proposal to have a separate pool of pilots for Open Skies.

A Balpa spokesman told Personnel Today:

"We very much hope we can get an agreement on this, but if we cannot then it is going to be a long-term problem for the company - in particular for its HR team."

The informal conversations that I held with various members of staff, on the long haul flights I took between London/Beijing this year (eg see letter sent to Willie Walsh), indicate that there is a very high degree of dissatisfaction amongst the staff with BA.

There are storm clouds ahead.

It will be in the interests of everyone (staff, customers and BA) that BA find a way to fly around them.

Congratulations

Well deserved congratulations to the crew of Thursday's BA038 from Beijing, who managed to crash land the plane safely without any major injury to the passengers or crew.

Any landing that you can walk away from is a good landing!

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.

Flight from BJ

I will be on the BA Beijing to London flight on the 11th, feel free to say hello.

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.

Missing Airmiles VIII

Sent to BA, still chasing them up over my missing airmiles:

"Just touching base with you on this.

I will be flying with BA this Saturday to Beijing (booking ref *****) and I would appreciate this matter being sorted out before I go away.

Thanks

Kind regards

Ken Frost"

BA's Pricing

Now here's a funny thing, concerning the price quoted on the BA website for a first class return flight London/Beijing.

I was quoted a price of over £6500, were I to book a BA flight using the BA website.

However, the travel agency that I use quoted me a price of £4900 for the same flights. That is a saving of approximately 25%.

I wonder why there is such a discrepancy in quotes, given that the travel agency would still have to make a commission?

Needless to say, I made the reservation using the travel agency rather than the BA site.

London Beijing Response

I finally received a response to my letter sent to Willie Walsh, the response was dated 30th April 2007 (some 6 weeks after my original letter).

The response was from BA's customer relations, here are a few excerpts:

"I realise that we did not meet the high level of customer service you would expect from British Airways."

"I recognise that we got the balance wrong on the day that you were travelling and this is unacceptable..."

"It will take a little while to roll out the new in-flight entertainment system on all our aircraft..."

"We greatly value our first class customers and we would like to offer you our apologies."

FYI, I have just used the London/Beijing BA service (September 2007); absolutely nothing has changed wrt on board entertainment, the quality of the seats or indeed the availability of chutney.

More about that in another post.

London Beijing March 2007

Text of a letter sent to Willie Walsh CEO of BA on 17 March 2007

"Dear Mr Walsh,

I would like to provide you with a few observations about my recent “first class” return trip (London-Beijing) on BA (8th March-12th March):

· The standard of the Heathrow lounge was not what I would expect for first class; it does not compare favourably wrt the facilities, or indeed size, of lounges offered by other airlines eg Virgin.

· There were only two Internet workstations in the London and Beijing lounge. In the Beijing lounge, one of the Internet workstations was out of order.

· The theory of the London lounge, as best as I can make out, is that customers sit down and are served by BA staff. Unfortunately, those customers who did not sit in the immediate vicinity of the bar were not able to attract the attention of staff for service, as there weren’t any staff in the non-bar area. I had to go to the bar to find anyone willing to serve me.

· The entertainment system on both flights did not work that well. The outgoing flight could not show the safety video, as the system had a malfunction. The quality of the picture on both flights was poor, and on some of the channels (outgoing and inbound) the video didn’t work at all.

· The remote control in the armrest on my outgoing flight was stuck, and had to be extracted by the cabin crew with a butter knife. Very high tech!

· In trying to manually extend the footrest on my seat, I managed to impale and cut my finger on a sharp piece of metal that was protruding from underneath the edge of the footrest.

· One member of staff, who was so ashamed by the quality, told me with head bowed in shame that the system was “out of the ark”. I would concur, as other airlines, such as Singapore and Virgin, used to have the same systems back in the early/mid nineties; they have long since upgraded them. I was advised that that the systems will be upgraded, but was also told that this same message has been repeated for quite some time. Having paid £6K for my ticket, hearing of future plans is of little interest to me.

· On both flights a curry was served, yet no chutneys were available. I improvised with marmalade. BA makes great efforts to tell me in the menu that the recipes are designed by world-class chefs. That being the case, why did I have to resort to using marmalade?

· The quality of the staff on both flights, and their customer care/attention, was good. They were all embarrassed by the poor state of the technology and equipment on board.

BA’s last remaining asset that has not been tarnished by strikes, security delays, delays in general and out of date entertainment systems, would appear to be its staff. However, if they are embarrased and ashamed of their company I wonder how long you will retain their loyalty?

Reputations are hard to earn, but easy to lose.

In brief, I do not think that the “first class” description equates to the price I paid, or the competition that BA faces. I will be travelling on a more regular basis to Beijing over the coming months/years, but will be (subject to schedules) looking to other airlines to get me there and back.

In my view, there are a number of issues that you need to address if BA is to retain the much tested “loyalty” of their customers, whether they travel economy, business or first.

I would be interested to hear you views on the above, and what steps BA will be taking in the short term to address these issues.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Frost"