British Airways slammed for bad customer service
A travel agent has taken to social media in a last-ditch attempt to get British Airways to respond to a query about a stranded client.
Lisa O’Connell, a member of Independent Travel Experts, turned to social media after phone calls to BA proved fruitless when a client was stranded in Barbados.
After posting for help on the Facebook Travel Gossip page, O’Connell was advised to contact BA via Twitter to get a response from the airline.
Her Facebook post said: "My customers have now been stuck in Barbados for three days after you offloaded them from their flight with absolutely no explanation and still nobody seems to know or even care when they will able to fly them home. What a disgrace and absolutely appalled by your lack of service and care."
She told TravelMole: "There are worse places to be stuck, but the customer has high profile job that needed him back into work yesterday (Monday).
"He is absolutely fuming that nobody has seemed bothered with helping them or trying to get them home any quicker. There has been explanation as to why they were offloaded from the flight. They were promised a flight the next day and yet they are still there.
"I don’t understand how a company the size of BA can literally leave customers stranded for three days after they were due home.
"The customer service has been appalling, especially the girl I spoke to today who could barely understand let alone speak English. She had never even heard of Barbados and was as much use to me as a chocolate fire guard."
Her Facebook post generated a barrage of responses from agents who suggest Twitter was the way forward.
"I’ve found the only way to really get any help or info from BA is to tweet them. Once the issue was in the public domain it seemed someone pulled their finger out," said one agent.
Another said: "I had business class passengers downgraded to economy at Easter and have only just got it sorted out. I agree with you Lisa, they are awful. Easyjet puts BA to shame. Go onto Twitter, it works."
A third agent added: "I have just managed to get my customer money back from a downgrade since last December 2014, but had to call them twice a week every week [It] is very hard."
A spokeswoman for BA said the airline has a dedicated team who speak regularly with travel agencies.
"They work very hard to respond to queries such as this as quickly and efficiently as possible," she said.
"We are very sorry for the delay to customers’ travel, but the safety of our passengers and crew is always our top priority.
"As result of a minor technical fault with the aircraft, the flight was delayed leaving Bridgetown.
"Our teams worked very hard to keep customers well informed, as well as provide hotel accommodation and meals while we worked to reschedule the flight.
"We did everything we could to get our customers to their destinations as soon as possible."
Lisa
Lisa joined Travel Weekly nearly 25 years ago as technology reporter and then sailed around the world for a couple of years as cruise correspondent, before becoming deputy editor. Now freelance, Lisa writes for various print and web publications, edits Corporate Traveller’s client magazine, Gateway, and works on the acclaimed Remembering Wildlife series of photography books, which raise awareness of nature’s most at-risk species and helps to fund their protection.
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