Customer service lessons for British Airways, Heathrow and all airlines

A final update on my journey out of the London Heathrow chaos, along with a few takeaways that the incident made me think about, not just for the airline and airport directly involved, but for the wider industry.

The reticketing process was treacle-slow; most of the time there were just three re-ticketing desks open … and this was for BA/oneworld priority customers (I have oneworld sapphire status) – heaven knows what they were doing for their “non-priority” customers. Given the time we had on hand, however, some of us in the queue made it an entertainment to time how long it was taking each passenger to be reticketed once they actually reached a desk. The BA guy at check-in desk H12 won our prize for most entertaining: he came on duty at 5am and by 9am was still working his second customer. We quickly agreed that should we get to the front of the queue just as H12 got his second passenger rebooked, we’d pass to the next in line and wait for another agent.

When I reached the BA re-ticketing desk after five hours of queuing, the check-in agent was polite and professional, but no acknowledgement of what her customers were going through… no “sorry you’ve had such an awful wait/night”. She just got right into finding a new flight, which was fine by me but not an endearing BA moment after nearly 18 hours of Heathrow hell.

She was, however, the hare to H12’s tortoise. Thirty minutes later and she told me she had secured me a seat on the 5pm direct flight to Washington Dulles – the same flight I was on the previous day until its APU bust.  Great news! But then she looked again at the screen and was clearly troubled. I figured the flight had just been canceled (there were many additional cancelations on Monday). She got on the phone to someone in the BA system and started talking code. Finally she told BA system guy “thank you so much for fixing that: sorry – my mistake”.

Then she turned to me and explained that she had accidently put me in a business class seat, but “you aren’t business class, so I had to fix that. But it’s okay, all fixed.”

Fixed indeed and firmly put in my place to boot!  I mean, the seat was clearly available, so even if it was a mistake, here was an opportunity to deliver a “we are so sorry, but please enjoy an upgrade”. Even more fundamentally, from a customer service perspective: you made a mistake and can’t allocate that business seat, but please don’t tell me about your mistake! Keep me in blissful ignorance of my unimportance.

In my carry-on was a jar of blackcurrent preserve and a jar of mustard pickle; treats I had bought at a gourmet store in T5 duty free after going through security the first time. As BA still had my checked bag (somewhere, but nowhere that I was allowed to know of) and I had to go back through security, I would have to throw away both jars because they would not comply with the 3oz gel rule. So it was at this point I contemplated unscrewing both jars and pouring them over this woman’s head. Instead, I politely told her this had been the worst travel experience I had ever been through, took my boarding pass and threw the jars in security’s trash can.

Flight 293, a 747, did leave the gate this time and I arrived at Dulles, sailed through Global Entry to a very welcoming US Customs & Immigration agent and – praise be – was reunited with my baggage.

So here are my takeaways:

Lessons for British Airways and Heathrow: