My letter to the boss of BA – here’s how to fix your airline
Dear Sean Doyle,
I am writing to you on behalf of the thousands of Telegraph readers who shared their ire following my recent feature on a flight from hell with British Airways. In the comments below the article, and in emails and letters sent to me since, I have read countless similar tales of woe. I can draw only one conclusion: something is wrong with your company, and if you are serious about restoring the glory days, when BA could reasonably call itself the “world’s favourite” airline, I urge you to read this letter.
You inherited the role of CEO from Willie Walsh in 2020, during the worst crisis in aviation history, and I acknowledge that you had a deep hole to climb out of. Still, there is always great opportunity when starting from such a low baseline.
It sounded hopeful when you told Telegraph Travel in 2021 that your goal was to make BA “premium in everything we do”. Yet, as my recent long-haul flight from London to Mauritius revealed, you have failed in this noble goal.
It wasn’t just bad, Sean. It was abysmal. And that my article garnered one of the biggest responses I’ve ever received in more than a decade of writing for national newspapers – along with more than half a million views for my accompanying TikTok video – should tell you something.
You’re a busy man, so I’ve waded through all these comments, emails and letters to give you the jist of our quibbles.
Poor customer service – as I experienced when I flew with my toddler – came up again and again. It’s a tough business to operate in and events regularly throw a spanner in the works that are out of your control. Consumers understand this. It’s how you treat us along the way that makes a difference. Stephen Hazell-Smith emailed to tell me how “British Airways did their absolute level best to kill the joy” of his first overseas holiday after beating cancer last year, downgrading him from Premium to Economy, and making him jump through hoops to claim compensation.
After a recent flight delay in California, Rebecca Bland said: “Passengers including my 78-year-old mother were left sitting on the floor for hours and BA staff were incredibly rude. The lady in front of me with a toddler was in tears and those behind the ‘helpdesk’ couldn’t be bothered to look at her let alone attempt to help.”
Poppy Dee recalled “surly” staff on a flight to Hong Kong: “My meal was thrown down and it landed on my neighbour’s table.”
The most “liked” comment beneath my article? “British Airways crew hate kids! Their eyes used to roll when they saw us boarding. One steward even removed the blanket off my sleeping baby to give to another passenger.”
Scores of readers, just like Mr Hazell-Smith, told of problems securing refunds. They included Claire O’Donnell, whose flight to the US was cancelled by text message the night before. She said: “After weeks of my time being wasted fighting for a refund, they finally paid up – less a £600 admin fee. When I complained to customer service and said I would never use them again, their response was ‘OK then’.”
Another, Philip Shaw, commented: “Just before Christmas I flew BA with my wife and seven-week-old baby. In the week before we flew, I spent hours and hours on the phone due to problems with the booking. I spent longer on hold than the actual time in the air! Then, when we got to the check-in desk at 5am, we were told our baby was not on the booking and my wife and I were seated in different rows!”
Many brought up BA’s technical issues. “Their IT systems seem to be languishing in the 1980s,” noted one. “Their systems are creaking with age and are not fit for purpose,” said another. Your company’s laggy website – “the worst I have ever had the misfortune to use,” wrote Alistair O’Dowd – also came in for criticism.
Having watched the airline scrap much of its complimentary culinary offerings over the years, culinary grumbles were legion. On my flight to Mauritius, my child’s requested meal never showed up and Diana Bowden reported the same problem on the same route (on top of a two-hour delay and preceding the loss of her luggage). Bianca Mitchell recounted being served a children’s meal as your airline had “run out” of adult options (no apology was offered, she said, with passengers told to “have it or not”).
I could go on, with further tales of lost luggage, of last-minute delays and of unexplained downgrades, but will instead turn to how you can turn things around.
Hope is not lost. Despite it all, you still have a strong card in your hand. You are our flag carrier, and as such the British public want you to succeed. Just as Margaret Thatcher once famously indicated that BA should be proud of its Union Flag tailfin, a good number of your customers yearn to be loyal once more. I believe it is possible. To assist, I have created a 10-point plan, taking into account what our readers have been ranting about.
I suggest you take the following pointers on board, quite literally. Take a leaf, perhaps, from the book of your old rival Sir Richard Branson and observe how he responded to a complaint letter that went viral in 2009. Rather than ignore it, Branson called the passenger personally and invited him down to Virgin Atlantic’s headquarters to collaborate on a solution. A publicity stunt? Sure, but it beats your airline’s response to my grievance and those of countless others, which was not even a refund but a measly voucher to use on our next BA flight.
1. Refund us in cash
This leads me neatly to my first suggestion. When BA has made a mistake and wasted a passenger’s time and money, refund them. Not in miles. Not in vouchers. Especially – and I can’t stress this enough – after they’ve told you they will never fly with you again. If you adopted this policy, there’d even be a fighting chance we’d let you off the hook.
2. Be nice
Currently, your customer service, quite aside from being glacially slow, is condescending and disingenuous. Drop the “we currently have a higher than usual volume of claims” from your rhetoric. This volume is not higher than usual, it’s been going on so long that it is now absolutely usual. Overhaul it all, and hire more (and nicer) people to deal with complaints.
3. Stop trying to compete with Ryanair
You’ll never beat them on cheap fares, so stop with the cost-cutting. No one who books a flight with Ryanair is anticipating a good experience. In a way, it’s refreshing. But BA is supposed to be a premium carrier, remember? So how about a free G&T, or at the very least a cup of tea or coffee, even for economy-class passengers?
4. Invest in your website
It is still laggy, with flight details taking an age to load – far longer than the likes of Ryanair and EasyJet. Wasn’t there supposed to be a new one launching last year?
5. Stop charging business class passengers for seat allocation
Very few other airlines do this. It’s not a good club to be in. When you’ve paid in excess of £2,000 for a ticket, a further charge is just insulting.
6. Give your tattier airport lounges a once-over.
Surely BA should have one of the finest in the world, something to rival what you’ll find in Dubai or Abu Dhabi? It doesn’t. In fact, it doesn’t even have the best lounge at Heathrow.
7. Do everything in your power to avoid downgrading passengers
We received far too many reports of this happening in the comments section. Either fix your overbooking problem, or make amends with affected passengers sufficiently that they forgive and forget (and don’t feel the need to reveal their story to a national newspaper and its readers).
8. Some more legroom would be nice
It’s one of the only ways to truly differentiate yourselves in this cabin, yet BA’s legroom now compares with low-cost carriers. A generation ago, 32 inches of seat “pitch” was the norm on short-haul services, and 34 on long-haul flights. Now it’s 30 and 31, respectively.
9. Treat families better
For heaven’s sake, approve sleep aids like the Stokke JetKids BedBox (at the centre of my recent flightmare) – not just for the infants and their parents, but for everyone else in earshot. You say they’re a “safety hazard”, but more than 50 other airlines disagree with you.
10. Inject a bit of British humour and can-do spirit into your culture
Too many of your staff members display a jobsworth, computer-says-no attitude. It’s unbearable. Fix it.
Yours sincerely,
Annabel Fenwick Elliott
What BA had to say about my letter
A British Airways spokesperson said: “We know we don’t always get everything right and we never want to let our customers down. We’re working hard to transform the airline and fix these issues. Our plan is backed by a £7billion investment in new aircraft, refreshed lounges, improved cabins, a new website and app, and the very latest technology to help improve our operation, among other initiatives. We’re grateful to our customers for their continued support and are all focused on our goal of delivering a consistently great experience.”
