So the merry go round continues, Flight Centre customer excellence have been in touch, which is good, but here's the bit that's not. The Airline involved was British Airways a huge multinational company with strong and clear policies and yet when it comes to charges for name changes, who makes them, how much they are, where they go, was it done at all with all the policies and technology it appears customers money is of no interest, they say contact Flight Centre, Flight Centre say British Airways made the charge, I say what the hell is going on??? Does people's hard earned money count for nothing? . My parents were charged £350 someone must know WHO MADE THE CHARGE BA OR FLIGHT CENTRE, WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE OF THE COSTS INVOLVED? I'D LIKE AN ITEMISED BILL OF HOW ADDING MRS. AND ROCHE IN EQUALS £350 in anyone's time...has anyone else had problems like this because I'd be interested to know come join me on my facebook page I was charged for a name change and let's see what's really going in this seemingly high unregulated area, trading standards have been informed and I will be persuing this.

Business lessons from British Airways: How to profit from your own incompetence.

Lesson 1: Did you screw up? Act quickly: blame “reasons beyond our control”.
— You had to cancel a flight because you mismanaged the crew schedule? Your flight was late for any reason whatsoever? Blame it on the fog, the volcano cloud, or an inexistent strike at the airport. Then reschedule the flight to whichever time it’s convenient for you.

Lesson 2: Make the customer pay for your mismanagement.
— Your passenger lost her connection due to your canceled/delayed flight? No problem. At least not for you! This will only cost you a night in a budget hotel in the middle of nowhere, two shuttle tickets, and a bad meal, which most probably your customer would not be able to eat, because she will probably arrive too late at the hotel. If you’re lucky enough, you will save the shuttle tickets as well. Just hope that the queue in passport control is very, very long and that, by the time she reaches the bus stop, the service is already closed. She doesn’t have local currency to pay for a taxi? Great! Then she would have to stay in the airport and you save the money for the hotel as well! Just figure it out: all your mismanagement may not cost you a penny! The best of all is that you can profit on this as well. Be very forceful and insist that there is no way to hold an international flight for only 15 minutes. After all, you are a reliable air carrier! Then go on and sell the seats of the three unfortunate Brazilians. Act very “professionally” and tell them — even before the plane has landed — that they already lost their connection. Bingo!

Lesson 3: Don’t treat all customers equally
— You realize that some of the passengers are about to lose their connections. What do you do? Would you try to help them all get out of the plane as quickly as possible? No. First see who is in this situation. When a Brazilian woman asks to be seated in business class just for the landing, so she can go out quickly to the gate, the answer is that the business class is full, unfortunately. However, just before the landing Mr. Johnson is called in the speaker to go on to business class for the landing, so he can go out quickly to his connection. The Brazilian woman may think this is unfair. But one should know that life isn’t fair, right?

Lesson 4: If you run out of arguments, offend the passenger.
— Now the Brazilian lady is angry. After all, she was forced to miss two flights within an eight day period. But there is a way to make her angrier still, and profit from this! Offer the worse deal first: a seat in the next British Airways flight to São Paulo, 24 hours after the one she just lost (or was forced to lose). If she does not speak or understands English very well, no way she will refuse the deal. But suppose you’re not lucky this time and in addition of being able to speak English fairly well she knows her passenger’s rights and demands that she is booked in the next possible flight to São Paulo, in any airline. Suppose still that she asks to speak to a British Airline manager to complain about the “service on demand” — meaning: only if the passenger demands, options are presented. If you are this manager, put on your “despise face”, do not hear what the complainer has to say, and shout out loud to the passenger: “I think you have a ‘problem’!!”. This would not be a lie, because the passenger indeed has a problem (although not the one you insinuated).

Lesson 5: Do not have a heart.
— Suppose one of the unfortunate passengers that lost the connection to São Paulo is a 15 years old girl, who was going to Brazil to attend her uncles’ funeral. Please do not be human now; be business-like! Put in her hand the hotel voucher, the shuttle tickets, exactly as prescribed in Lesson 2. She is just 15 years old, travelling alone, and it will be past midnight when she reaches immigration. Do not let this weaken your resolve!! Just do it!!! Do not even think how she would be if she does not get anything to eat, if the shuttle service is already closed, if she does not have local currency to pay for a taxi, if she is on her own, possibly scared in face of the situation. Now it’s time to treat all passengers equally!

Lesson 6: Let the “force” be with you!
OK. Not everything may go accordingly to your plans. Suppose the two other unfortunate Brazilians have a heart and try to help out the 15 years old girl. When at immigration, one of the Brazilian women offers to look after the girl until her flight next morning. The emigration officer is very understanding and even thanks the Brazilian lady for her “kindness”. However, when all seemed solved, the Brazilian woman informs the officer that she would like to make a complaint in writing against British Airways for the way the girl was treated, adding that the girl’s father is an attorney and he would certainly take action on that. Then all changes. The smile in the face of the officer disappears, he collects back the girl’s and the lady’s passports and put them waiting behind the UK border for about 30 minutes (even though the visa had already been issued). They are informed that they were waiting for B.A. staff. When the four B.A. employees arrive, the officer takes them to a room within emigration quarters, in order to “provide details of the situation”, as he explains while passing by the lady and the girl. A few minutes afterwards, they all came back, the passports are returned, and the B.A. employees inform that they were there to “take care of the girl”. The two ladies say that they would like to continue to make company to the girl, along with the B.A. representatives. No way, replies a B.A. employee; after all, the ladies were not the girls’ parents or relatives. This little story shows how precious it is to cultivate good relations with government officials. One never knows when these would be needed. By avoiding the lady to formalize her complaint and by rushing B.A. staff to cover-up their mishandling of the girl’s needs, this immigration officer possibly saved a great deal of money for British Airways. Thus, do not think that because you do business in a civilized country you don’t need “cuddling relations” with government officials. This is part of doing business anywhere!

Post Scriptum
These “lessons” are based on my personal experience with British Airways on two occasions: (a) Flight BA 246, which was to leave São Paulo to London on June 11, 2011 at 04:15 PM and left on June 12, at 4:00 AM; (b) Flight BA 557 on June 19, 2011, scheduled to leave Rome to London at 6:45 PM and left 7:15 PM.
To set the record straight, I would like to clarify some issues related to the lessons above. I am not sure whether B.A. sold our seats when flight 557 was delayed. However, it sounded to me that this was a “good” advice and perfectly fitted the other “good practices” of British Airways, which I personally experienced. It also explains why my request to sit in business class for the landing was denied and only later was told by a flight attendant that “unfortunately, the flight to São Paulo is on time”, therefore we would lose out connection. It seems that our fate had been decided well before the plane approached Heathrow airport. I also do not remember the true name of the passenger who was invited to sit in business class, but it was an Anglo-Saxon name; thus I call him just “Mr. Johnson”.
There are no reports on the Internet about flight delays/cancelations to Europe due to fog or the Chilean volcano between June 10 and 11, 2011; also there are no reports about a strike on June 19, 2011 at Fiumicino Airport in Rome. Thus, the justifications presented by B.A. for the cancelation of flight BA 246 and the delay of flight BA 557 were probably a “creative license” provided by the company to fool the passengers.
Roseli Estevam was my companion of misfortune that began with the delay of flight BA 557. By the time we reached the bus stop, it was past 1 AM and the shuttle service was already closed. Thus, we saved British Airways the costs related to the meal and the shuttle tickets. Unfortunately, we did not save the company the hotel expenditures, for we managed to get a lift to an intersection near Holliday Inn, thanks to the kindness of a driver who has taking his bus to the parking lot. But we had to pay for the quick meal at the airport and the taxi back to Heathrow Terminal 1 in the morning of June 20, for our shuttle ticket was useless at 4AM.
As to the 15 years old girl, we hope that she is fine and reunited with her family by now. She was supposed to take the TAP flight 367 to Lisbon and then flight 191 to São Paulo in the morning of June 20, the same as ours, but she did not show up. We appreciate if British Airways could inform us what happened to her.

São Paulo, June 21 2011
Christina Andrews

Dear Sirs,
This is to report to your company an unexpected, outrageous, unreasonable, antisocial behavour of a member of your staff and this is of lady Shilta Hill at JFK airport on the 1st of May, 2011. It is true that only one ugly, arrogant, rude impolite “professional” is needed to spoil the good image of British Airways and to make two passengers unhappy. The said lady was responsible at the final boarding point for flight number BA flying from New York to London Heathrow.

We were ready to get on board, my wife has already gone through and lady Hill has decided that my bag was not of the right size. This is the bag that I brought all the way from Cyprus, through London Heathrow, to New York, to Miami and back to New York. She looked at my passport and she whispered (ha Cyprus) and she got furious. She was shouting and yelling and pointing at us as if she was an army commander. I guess it was her colonist syndrome.

I consider this as a personal humiliation and a clear case of racism as the lady continued on her temper and started threatening and blackmailing us that she would live us behind.
I do not care...
This is my flight (…I have the power.. I do whatever I want… you bloody foreigner..you bloody Cypriot, .. this is how she sounded in my ears)
I know immediately when I see a bag..
I will send you back..
You have to pay now..
Sit there..

I have politely explained to her that we have checked in, properly and the gentleman at the checking point was satisfied. He has actually twice checked our bags and he was fully satisfied. I have suggested to her to talk to the gentlemen and she agreed to call him upstairs to confirm that this was the case.

I have also explained to her that the bag fits perfectly in the measuring box, it was only because we bough a couple of duty free items and a bottle of water that made the bag look a little bit baggy but she kept shouting.

As an old client of British airways I felt so much humiliated especially when she was weaving her hand towards me like I was a school child.

I will certainly wait for your response, after you “thoroughly” investigate the case, I keep names of other passengers who were there when the lady was performing and demonstrating her power and I reserve my rights as the case is a real case of discrimination and racism but it is also a case of humiliating somebody because.

I have explained to the lady that I had a surgery a few days ago and I was not allowed to lift any weight and BIG bags so that I could show her that the bag fits perfectly okay in the box but the gentlemen downstairs have checked that already but she kept shouting, I could not go n with her as she used her POWER to blackmail me.
Looking forward to reply
Best regards
Panteleimon Makris

During the crisis in Tokyo caused by the earthquake, tsunami and reactor potential melt-down danger, I booked tickets for my son and 5-month-old baby to travel urgently to the UK on 17 March, to avoid the serious threat of radiation to an under 1-year-old child.
We had to change the flight booking to a few days later, when my daughter-in-law could also manage to travel, so requested a further seat. The charge for one extra seat was so high that we had to cancel the one seat already booked for one adult and child ticket -- £2433.26.
British Airways said they would arrange a refund. Two and a half months later, no refund has been received.

When I tried to speak with someone about this, I was transferred to a recorded message, which reported that BA was a month behind with refunds! This is not fair on customers. I have supported BA through the years when travelling, and advised others to use this airline. However, the family now feels very let down by this company.

Do you think the Trading Standards organisation could help in resolving the issue of a very late refund?

I recently booked a flight for my 87 year old infirm Mother to travel to London Heathrow from Malaga on 20th May. I selected Departure and Destination airports by name and was delivered a list of flights one of which I booked. I checked the price and details and time and paid. I noticed a couple of days ago on one of their reminder emails that the flight was indeed going to London Gatwick not London Heathrow. I went to the website and made another selection using the same criteria as normally if there is no routing from one place to another there is no option to select flights. However on BA's website you ask for London Heathrow and they give you flights to Gatwick! I called customer services to see what could be done but they told me they don't fly Malaga to Heathrow anymore and haven' for 3 months - I asked why there was still an option for Heathrow from Malaga and why they gave back flights to another airport? I was not given a satisfactory answer, told I could change the time of the flight but would have to pay £150 on top of the £105 I have already paid for the flight. Their customer services rep was officious and unhelpful and told me his senior manager had told me to tell him that he would only say the same and on that basis would not come to the phone. At least they could change the flight to earlier in the day without charge for an elderly and frail person! The current flight arrives at 8pm (equivalent to 9pm Malaga time) and the journey is over an hour back to where she lives. I think it is a disgrace.