British Airways Review

I was looking forward to my flight on British Airways as I had never flown on them before, and had heard wonderful things about them from my friends traveling to Europe.  In February 2008 we flew out of Vancouver, British Columbia to Zurich, Switzerland to visit some friends, with a plane change at Heathrow in London.  It was a tight connection and we had to take the bus to change terminals, but we figured if we hustled, we'd make it.  How could we imagine that after running our rear ends off to get from terminal one to terminal four as fast as possible that we'd run into a little problem.  They didn't have a flight crew for the flight.  I don't mean short of flight attendants, they were shy of pilots.  Both of them.  It was a bit more serious than running shy of peanuts for the flight.  At this point I figured that yet our second flight on British would be a wee bit late to Zurich.  Three hours later, the crew showed.  This wouldn't have been that big of a deal should we not had friends waiting at the Zurich Airport to pick us up. 

The flight from Canada to London left almost a half an hour late, (no big deal), then we were crammed into maybe the narrowest seats I have ever sat in for a ten hour airplane flight.  Ten hours siting in a really really narrow tight seat in a completely packed airplane with no place to go and a large overly lubricated gentleman sitting on the aisle to my right isn't my idea of a great trip.  Not British Airways fault that large people fly and get crammed into seats half their width, but feeding him booze for about 4 hours when he already smelled like a Johnny Walker distillery, did get a bit under my skin, and made my barely able to deal with the width problem even more of an open wound.  

The return trip from Italy was no different.  Late, and late again.  They did have flight crews for all the return flights, so things were showing signs of improving.  On the return connection through Heathrow, (on a full to capacity 747), we were delayed about an hour because, according to the flight crew, "the passengers on board had brought too much luggage, and it had to be redistributed".  Weren't they the ones who packed it in the first place?  Now it's our fault?  In four decades of air travel, I had never heard that one before.  Bravo for originality. 

To their credit, the food was good on board, the seat back entertainment system worked well with tons of choices available, had excellent sound quality, and liquor was complementary during the international flights.  They also gave all passengers packets with socks for wearing on the flights, a toothbrush, ear plugs, and headphones for the entertainment system.  The in flight cabin personnel really were quite pleasant, and British pretty much always is competitive in price when flying in that general direction. 

In short, British was just too fraught with problems regarding finding the right gates because no one seemed to know, late flights, cramming people into the minimum amount of space when they fly, and personnel who just didn't seem to have their jobs as a priority in their lives during working hours.  I fly a lot for business and pleasure and am used to the problems associated with travel, and the sometime unavoidable mishaps that come your way on some journeys..... but this outfit......Holy cow!   I would again fly them if I had to, but it sure wouldn't be my first choice.  Nor my second.  Maybe it was just a bad trip, but I wouldn't look forward to taking the chance to check for improvements. 

UPDATE APRIL 2009:  As the British Airways saga continues, I flew out of Heathrow to Istanbul round trip during April of 2009.  Nothing much seems to have changed, but perhaps they're beginning to grow on me.  Don't get me wrong, they're still as disorganized as all get out, but the people on the flight crew were still quite pleasant, it was a nice flight both ways, and so what if the entertainment system was down.  It is British Airways after all.  The aforementioned being stated, I have softened my tone of their criticisms, and given them three stars, up from two.  British with all their faults, is still one of the most prominent connections for getting yourself around Europe, Asia Minor, or Africa from the good ol' USA.  Just don't be surprised if you end up hanging around in an airport for 8 or 9 hours because of some circumstance beyond their control.  It is British after all.