Never travel with British Airways again.

My wife and I are in Canada on vacation.

For the 4th time British Airways has thrown away our suitcase.

For the 4th time we are in the situation that it is impossible to get to talk to a living person.

We arrived in Montreal the 19th of December. They give us a web address and a tracking number and a phone number. It is a complete joke. The web site is not at all updated. It is a scam. The phone number is a machine and you cannot in any way get to talk to a living person.

When you look for phone numbers on the British Airways website you cannot find anything. British Airways is a company 100% without any other service than selling tickets.

It is now the 23rd of December. We received ONE suitcase yesterday at midnight. The other - my wife's - is still missing.

• We have had to shop for clothes 3 times.
• We have had to shop for soap, shaver, and other personal items twice.
• My wife had to go to a doctor and wait for 5 hours to get a perscription for medicine that is in the suitcase we have still not received.
• Our christmas presents are in the suitcase we have not received.

Basically British Airways have spoiled our xmas vacation here in Canada. And there is no limit to the actions I am going to take against British Airways when we return to Denmark.

From now on travelling from Denmark to anywhere will happen with other airlines than British Airways.

Both my wife and I are department managers and from now on we will both issue an order to our staff not to travel British Airways any longer.

This small webpage is just the beginning. We will write to the press. We will register a domain against British Airways. We will contact travel agents that handle our companies travelling.

This is now the 4th time British Airways does this to me. I have been without my suitcase when I got married 10 years ago because British Airways could not manage the simple task to bring my suitcase. We have had 2 more trips heavily disturbed by delayed luggage. But this time tops it. They know our suitcases are in Heathrow. Four airplanes have since taken off from Heathrow and landed in Montreal. The first two did not bring our suitcases. The 3rd brought ONE of two. And we are still waiting for the 4th. Yes it has been fog in London. That is not a reasonable excuse to not being able to move around on the ground and get a simple suitcase put on a plane that actually takes off. They have had 4 chances now.

But the worst part is the total lack of customer service. No phone number with real people on the other end. A suitcase tracking that never worked any of the times we lost the suitcases.

It is outrageous how a company can survive with customer service like this.

Oh yes. I forgot to say that my wife is a silver member of their executive club. What this means is ... nothing. They screw you just the same.

Follow-up 27 Dec 2006

We are about to return to Denmark.

Still Diane has not received her suitcase.

Still the online tracking system has not been updated.

Still the 1-800-828-8144 does not answer the phone. It is a voice response system from hell.

We have called the British Airways Executive Club service. A person promissed to call back with new. We have not received any calls.

We tried to write an email via a webpage. It took a week to get answer.

Received 27 Dec 2006 12:05

Dear Kenneth

I am sorry to learn about the difficulties with your luggage. Thank you for your email.

We go to great lengths to look after our customers' belongings at British Airways, and this certainly includes getting every single piece of luggage to the right place at the right time. This is small comfort, I know, for the situation we put you in after your own flight.

I have checked your file and so far there has not been registered any information on where your bags are. I am not able to do any tracing from our office, I can only read what has been written into the file.

There are still many bags still stuck in London and they are doing what they can to get all the bags delivered to the correct owner. I am sorry but I cannot guarantee you when that will be. I have to ask you to wait. You will be contacted when your luggage can be delivered to you.

You can go and purchase the most necessary items, keep the costs as low as possible and keep all original receipts. Then please send a claim to your local BA office when you get back home. Remember to quote your reference 5130 533 in all contact with us concerning this case.

I can inform you that luggage is being searched for for 21 days. After the 21 days the luggage is considered lost. If, however, the luggage is found after this time it will, of course, be delivered to the owner.

I hope you will choose British Airways again when you next fly.

Best regards

Linda May Larsen
British Airways Customer Relations
Your case reference is:5130533

Please do not reply directly to this email as direct replies are sent to an unmonitored mailbox and will not be actioned. Please use the link in 'How To Contact Us' below to send a reply.

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The answer we have sent.

We have received your reply and it did not make us any happier.

You said "We go to great lengths to look after our customers' belongings at British Airways"

You do absolutely nothing to take care of customers or our baggage.

We have received ONE of the two suitcases and still your baggage tracker has no up dated information. That system is not working at all. I wonder if it ever does.

The phone number 1 800 828 8144 does not have anyone answering. We have tried for days several hours of waiting. Noone answers the phone.

My wife called someone in the executive club that promissed that we would be called later. We have received no phone calls. The GSM number is still +45 30 79 57 23. And we still expect to talk to someone.

TODAY we are returning to Denmark. Still without one of our two suitcases. We have had to buy clothes for my wife for 7 days now. We had christmas parties to attend needed proper clothes for this. We tried to fit clothes and xmas presents into my suitcase but we could not and we have had to buy a suitcase for her clothes.

Our family never got their xmas presents they are in the missing suitcase.

This is the worst nightmare christmas in our lives. And my wife is even a silver member of your executive club. That makes no difference at all it seems. Same missing service.

YOU - British Airways will pay for all these clothes. You will pay for the suitcase. You will pay compensation for at least 3 lost days of our vacation. We have still not decided what this should be and will probably talk to our lawyer before we decide. This has nothing to do with the price of the pickets. This compensation for destroying our christmas with your deliberate acts of not delivering suitcases, not calling back, not giving news, not doing anything to serve your customers.

And we want answers!

- Why did at least 20 suitcases not arrive in Montreal on the 19th of December. We were quite many people on that plane that did not receive our suitcase. This is not an accidental misplaced piece of luggage. This is a deliberate act of not putting a lot of baggage on the same plane. WHY?

- Why did British Airways not make the necessary effort in ensuring that ALL the baggage was sent on the next available plane? I received mine 2 days later. My wife has been without suitcase all our vacation which has completely destroyed our vacation and our christmas. Why did BA not put staff on getting suitcases expedited the next day?

- Why is the tracking system not working? And why does the system not say it is down?

- Why does noone answer on the number 1 800 828 8144?

- Why does the person in Florida from executive club service not call us back as promissed?

- And finally when will the suitcase with tag number BA048114 be returned to our home address in Denmark?

I want answers to all those 5 questions. And I will not give up until I have answers to all 5. I do not want excuses or hear how sorry you are. I want our suitcase returned, I want answers and when we send our claims I want you to pay without hesitation.

Kenneth Lavrsen and Diane Chayer

-- KennethLavrsen - 27 Dec 2006

Are we alone? Oh no. Here are links that I will add now to other sites with similar experience.

• http://backtalk.com/articles/why-we-wont-fly-british-airways-any-more/
• http://www.my3cents.com/showReview.cgi?id=12939
• http://callcentres.com.au/british_airways.htm
• http://www.aviation-uk.com/monthmow.htm
• http://paco.to/blog/000071.html
• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061112072916AAiKj1d
• http://imomus.livejournal.com/76564.html

Links to BBC articles. Further proof that British Airways is not at all taken proper care of our baggage. Such a chaos should not be allowed to happen because of technical problems. Any other airport and airline would have been able to cope with this within a few days.

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/6227187.stm
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6225893.stm

-- KennethLavrsen - 24 Dec 2006

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