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Dan, I work for BA. We’ve always been hopeless at handling disruption. Combine that with a little bit of bad weather and the permanent staff shortages and the operation falls to pieces. The company won’t spend money in building resilience into the system and instead chases profits instead of a reliable schedule.

Hi Dan! I am a US based mainline flight attendant and I want to thank you for highlighting the verbal abuse directed at the BA crew and expressing empathy for them during the insane ground time at LHR. I absolutely love my career and the opportunity to offer professional and caring service to our passengers but I know what it is like to be berated because of operational delays beyond the crew's control. It means a lot that you emphasized these things despite the frustrating ground time. Also, I am a big fan of both this channel as well as your adventures with Oskar!

As retired cabin crew, i can tell you that when Lord King, and Lord Marshall retired, the Company collapsed. Most staff as you found out are replaced with cheap temp staff. Management treated all workers with total contempt and as you can see, the effect has rubbed off. Until BA gets a management that inspires and uplifts their workers nothing will change.

Totally agree - I was flying with heathrow business a few months back and the flight was delayed. Few hours after sitting at the gate, airport security came and told us the airport is closing our flight must have been cancelled and all BA staff had went home! Families stranded, kids sleeping on floor etc. My business seat was replaced with an economy seat the next day, had to sort hotel etc myself, no refreshment or vouchers etc. They just replied after three months saying they will pay the hotel and nothing else (no compensation for downgrade, no cancellation compensation as apparently there were thunderstorms in heathrow (blazing sunshine that day!). Ironically I had a delay with easyjet a week after that, and they arranged a great hotel stay for everyone, transport, room service meal covered, and all prepaid including taxis, and compensation paid within 2 weeks. I think it's time to accept BA is just a budget airline these days (and not a very good one), not to mention their app and tech solutions are very poor.

I’m Crew, and we’re all embarrassed by the LHR ground service. No buses, wheelchair support non-existent etc. We get tons of abuse about it & we’re just as embarrassed & angry about it too as we have just finished a busy flight/shift & these things delay us getting home or being commuters getting our flights home. Sadly the -4 temperatures meant planes waiting to be de-iced causing the gates being used until slots become available. Delays mean build up of more ice, it’s a never ending problem.

This is what happens when the system is collapsing. These companies treat their lower level employees like dirt do no one wants to work for this evil system anymore. We’re done.

I always feel embarrassed for the actions of some people towards flight crew members when they have no control of the flight (weather related, logistic issues…etc)

The thing with BA but also many other companies/institutions in the UK is that when things go well, it’s all perfectly smooth and easy, but if something goes wrong the whole system crumbles down. They are not very flexible and adaptable.

I used to be an onboard manager with BA. Its been like this for YEARS! This certainly isn't a one off. The company couldn't care less about their passengers. They'd happily send an aircraft out with not enough food, no food at all, broken toilets that you can't even flush, no IFE at all, premium cabin seats that don't even go into a flat bed. The list goes on. The ground handling is like this practically on a daily basis. Once they have your money, they couldn't care less. The poor cabin crew are treated like dirt. Ohh how the mighty have fallen. BA was amazing back in the day but that ship has long sailed. Its a national embarrassment these days.

I just paid for 7 business class tickets for my family to Male from London via Qatar airlines, and we were transferred to BA instead as the route is shared. Despite the booking being made 6 months in advance and it involving young children, we were told on arrival at Gatwick that 2 of the tickets had been downgraded. When we questioned the logic for this we were told that the computer had decided which people to downgrade and there was nothing we could do about it. We were handed a piece of paper that said the flight had been overbooked, and all airlines do it. They staff said that they didn’t even work for BA and this was just the way it was. Despite them wearing BA uniforms. They are a complete and utter shower! I will never give BA another penny of my money ever again and I will make it my life’s work to ensure no-one I know or meet ever does either.

BA and Heathrow nearly ruined my vacation last December from these exact issues. The interminable customer service lines (3 hours to resolve ~20 customers is unacceptable), the missed connections due to not having enough busses, extreme delays. And then customer support that is unsympathetic, refusing to help over the phone, only with in person agents who were on break (another hour wait) and who then proceeded to book us on flights with impossibly short connection layovers that we were destined to miss. Glad to see them getting this scrutiny.

Love your videos. Ive also experienced terrible customer service from BA when there are delays. An 8-hour flight from Heathrow to Newark turned into a two-day nightmare with minimal communication from BA to explain what was going on. That said, I try to remind myself that the fact that we live in a time that a thing such as an airline industry even exists is a miracle.

Hi Dan, I would say its lack of staff thats the problem, not equipment. British Airways are on a massive recruitment drive at the moment. They got rid of to many people during covid, its their own fault 100%

Great insight, it has been chaos at LHR. The problem is a chronic shortage of staff in all roles across the airport. Thousands of staff were made redundant during the pandemic and then asked to return on lower pay, many (rightly) refused causing huge operational delays

There seems to be a general detonation in many companies which now only seem to pursue short term profits. My friend was on a Lufthansa flight where the passengers were kept in the plane on the ground waiting for 3 hours before take off and 2 hours after landing because of a ground crew strike. I recently went on a Royal Caribbean cruise where they changed the departure port at the last minute to another port 400 km away thus causing chaos and lost money among the passengers...and Royal Caribbean offered no compensation for their actions. Instead they blamed the passengers. Just terrible and they do not care.

Great video Dan. After my experience with BA the last two years, them cancelling flights including a major vacation and for a family wedding, I have cut all my ties with the airline. I was previously a Gold Executive Club member and have even gone through the arduous process of cancelled my membership with them as I never intend to fly BA ever again. As for Heathrow, it is an airport I will try to avoid at all costs. I accidentally forgot how utterly terrible the experience was and travelled through LHR a couple of months ago... My flight was just over an hour but the transit time through the airport and to my car was nearly two hours. Terrible airline, awful airport.

I totally agree with you Dan. I'm English and I remember in the not too distant past when BA was one of the best airlines in the world. Not so anymore. Basically, BA just don't give a shit and they wonder why they are losing business to other airlines, right, left and centre. I'm afraid the Asian and Arab airlines took over airline business years ago and continue to make a good job of it.

This happened to me too about a week ago- where the “system” at LHR “blocked” me and did not allow me to proceed on to my connecting flight because I was “too late,” telling me I needed to go to the customer service desk instead. I lucked out and a BA “supervisor” randomly showed up and she told the security attendant to let me through. I made my next flight- which was an American Airlines codeshare flight to LAX that left exactly on-time. My entire travel experience from LA to Dublin via LHR, both outbound and returning, was the worst I have ever experienced all because of British Airways and the situation at Heathrow. As a customer who flies out of LAX and therefore has many other options, this experience alone made me decide to never fly BA again, even if their cost, routing, flight-time, etc. was better than the alternative.

It’s not British Airways. It’s Britain…the whole country has turned into a joke.

The only reason I choose BA, especially on certain routes is for the equipment and the capabilities in the Cockpit. Many are unaware that BA has sophisitcated avionics compared to some airlines and the training, especially having both Pilots qualified to CAT III landings in zero visability to get down safely where others may not perhaps be capable of doing so. Having travelled since the age of 5 and that's over 50 years and working in aviation all my career I gave up on the flight and airport experience being enjoyable.

I fly BA for work every other week and I'm so glad you made this video! The customer service is appalling and Heathrow is just an anxiety centre. BA should really pay for a benchmarking study so that they understand how they truly rank. How they get away with charging the prices they do is just beyond me. I recently booked tickets to go to Dubai from LHR and have paid £50 more per ticket to fly Emirates and avoid BA.... Awesome channel BTW, keep it up!

I literally HAD the same issue on my business class overnight flight from JFK to LHR on Monday 5th June! Only one bus was sent that took the first class passengers and some business class passengers. We waited 30 mins to get off the plane when two more buses were sent. Such a shambolic experience tbh!

The last time I traveled through Heathrow, the business class got off and we got to the terminal door and it was locked! Nobody at the airport seemed aware and we tried to open the door only to yelled at by airport security. After waiting about 20 minutes, we finally were able to leave. This is after more passengers in the plane we're all backed up in the hallway. Not to mention my bags were lost for my connection to Iceland. They arrived two days later!

Perhaps the only consolation is that BA is not British and has not been for years. For that matter, neither is Heathrow; it's owned by a mix of foreign investment companies whose number one priority is to maximise shareholder value.

The whole experience with BA is a nightmare and Heathrow in general. In November I waited for 2 hours for my luggage to come off my BA flight and arrive at the carousel. Passengers were tired after a 12 hour flight and this was really a disgrace.

Please don't apologise. Everything you said is absolutely true. The only difference between us is that my husband and I had one of the rudest hostess in all our time of flying and this was in business class. Also they apparently ran out of all the food we pre-ordered and we were told rather abruptly to choose something else! They are blatant and totally unapologetic in their incompetence in the care of customers. I always make sure I was polite and pleasant to the cabin crew.

My husband and I travel to Germany a few times a year, and we never connect through Heathrow. It's always been a nightmare, we just fly direct from the US to Frankfurt. We stopped using BA years ago.

Last time I flew B.A. Was a business class flight. Gate staff were great but that changed when we boarded. My son and daughter had had a huge argument that morning and The grandchildren were so excited about flying to the U.S.A. A flight attendant was saying in a raised voice "All bags in the overhead lockers". Fair enough. I put my laptop bag on the ground and was helping get the g.c.s settled and squared away. The attendant passed me, turned and in a loud voice said "I TOLD YOU, ALL BAGS IN THE OVRHEAD LOCKERS" . I replied I was seating my grandchildren and if she wanted to take that on she was more than welcome. I could go on, she was an absolute bovine. I realise dealing with the public can be horrible at times and that cabin crew come in for some foul abuse at times, but starting out aggressive doesn't help.

I’m glad you made a video about BA. I had a horrible experience with them last spring out of Paris CDG airport. I was treated horribly by the staff who made us miss our flight and the literally refused to give us the correct customer service number for BA. It’s a very long story but we never recieved the number from BA so we went over to American and booked new flights with them and they took really good care of us. When I got home I tried to contact BA for my refund and to file a complaint and they wouldn’t take calls they said it was a different department via email so I emailed several times, just for them to respond once every month. They have horrible customer service and I will never fly with them again.

I think all the ground staff left in lockdown and never came back. We touched down 30 mins early and got to near the jetway. The lights to guide the plane onto the stand were off. The captain apologised. Some 15 minutes later they got turned on but only by a jetway operator who just happened to be passing - he was going to another gate. It took another 45 minutes to get someone to get the jetway in place. The captain kept us amused by giving us a commentary on his continuing attempts to get it resolved.

Well that reflects the current British economy well. I just recently flew with a few Asian airlines and Asia seems to be doing very well. Singapore air had great staff, Wifi on board and was super clean- all in ECONOMY. Vietnam Airlines had hot towels, welcome drinks, ADULT sized silverware, amazing meals no matter if it’s supper, dinner, lunch or breakfast (plus bubble tea on board)-all in ECONOMY

Worst travel experience of my life was with BA last spring. It seriously had me considering whether I even want to bother with international travel anymore. I got over that, but now I’ll avoid BA like the plague for the rest of my life.

British Airways has gone down hill so bad, I was genuinely in shock at the business class service I received. The food,the dirty seat, horrific

I hope a lot of people watch this video. It’s incredibly honest and like others have said you do a really good job of advocating for the crew. I had a similar experience with another airline waiting on a bus at JFK late at night and it was awful. This would have likely ended much worse with American passengers, like you noted😅

6 years ago I did applied for a bus driver at BA. In the job advert they never mentioned how much is the salary for this position. So I went trough a long process interview. On final interview I found that they pay peanuts and I refused to work for them.

We flew Mexico City to LHR a few months ago. The boarding process by the BA staff at Mexico City was utterly chaotic. We had checked in online and already had our boarding passes. On arrival at the gate, there was complete chaos. Boarding gate staff read out an incredibly long list of people to come to the counter. It turned out they did not accept the online boarding passes on our phones so we all had to queue to get a paper one. Most of those in the queue were First and Club passengers. After 30 minutes or so with a very disorganized queueing process we finally managed to get our paper boarding passes, by which time most Economy passengers had already boarded. Given there is a flight from MEX to LHR every day surely they should not have this kind of chaos? The food and service on board was great. We were in transit to Lisbon at Heathrow but because of the delays at MEX we missed our connection. BA then transferred our flight to a TAP flight and lost our bags in the transfer. We finally got our bags two days later with some substantial damage to one. We tried to claim the damage from BA but they blamed the damage on TAP and washed their hands of it. We just gave up!

I worked for BA for 6 years and I have to be honest. As a corporate sales/B2B manager I was utterly disgusted by the way they treated 'home team' let alone paying customers. Massive unionation and a huge attitude problem among operational staff. Truly shocking.

I flew BA from Australia to London Heathrow. There was no entertainment on the way, although they said there was an engineer working on it, and it would be repaired shortly. It was not available the whole flight. Forward six weeks to my return flight to Australia. It was the same jet with that same recording explaining the same lie because the entertainment problem was still not fixed. 21 hour flights are a nightmare without entertainment. Never flew with them again. What does it say about their other maintenance practices. Shocking.

My boyfriends mum works for BA and has done for like 30 years and she’s mentioned many times that the job is terrible now.

The issue is pure greed on the part of LHR and BA. They aren't willing to pay the wages necessary to bring back the ground crew and luggage crew they fired during the covid lockdown. They still think they can pay some shite non-livable amount of salary same as they did prior to COVID and inflation and it obviously isn't working. Same thing happened in amsterdam, which led to a horrible post-covid first summer and complete luggage meltdown with over 50000 pieces of luggage lost or so heavily delayed the people whose luggage it was never got it back. The airport fixed it by providing a 'temporary' wage increase which in fact was just a living wage at this point because the netherlands are incredibly expensive to live in nowadays. Then the airport got rid of the temporary wage increase, everybody quit, and the shit show was back on until the government directly intervened and the CEO was fired. The British government would never dare to interfere or put pressure on businesses even if the situation is embarassing for the country and bad for workers because business leaders are saints in British politics whose decisions can never be questioned. Its disgusting.

I have the misfortune of living in London and flying BA both long and short haul, and you actually got pretty fortunate. In the last three years they delayed my honeymoon flight by 15 hours and then lost my wife’s bag for 5 days (so lost a days skiing and had to buy her new luggage), have run out of all food on long haul flights, have had broken toilets leading to long queues, I’ve been manhandled by a staff member for walking to the bathroom during light turbulence on a night flight, multiple lost bags and hour long delays. They’ve also removed all non-prebooked food and drinks from some short flights, the customer service is non-existent and management do not give a toss. And that is where the blame site, with BA and IAG’s board. Do none of them flight commercial or something? An absolute litany of excuses about Covid and Heathrow’s fault, no actual ownership and no improvement - if anything the service on long haul flights is actually getting worse, it must be such a toxic work environment when it leads to customers getting treated that badly. The corp needs an entire clean out at the top and get people who know what they are doing and have their priorities correct. Love how they’ve changed the motto from ‘to fly, to serve’ to ‘BA better world, because they’re certainly not serving anyone

I had a terrible experience when British airways cancelled our flight at Christmas from New York to london whilst on board (Xmas time) abandoned me and my family , no customer service , no rebooking . Still trying to get compensation but they completely ignore you . Gone down the legal route now and we were business passengers. This video highlights our same experiences

This is the general chaos I find in England across the board, I’ve lived her 13 years now and you do get used to it, surprisingly and your tolerance levels become a lot higher

My wife is a flight attendant for Finnair. BA is leasing some of Finnair's A321 and using Finnair's crew. They go to Heathrow for 5 days and fly from there. She was surprised how rushed everything is and the constant delays on everything. This also stresses the already thin crew to the max. Food just in general did not seem of good quality. Drink variety and less of ready made drink seemed good in business. For flagship carrier surprising emphasis put on selling stuff in flight. She also thought it was hilarious that BA has warnings on their app for titles, like Lord. So you need to use the titles constantly when talking. That to her and I would imagine anybody in the Nordics seemed pretty silly and something from 100 years ago.

p.s. - prior to the return flight I had complained to BA about the outward flight and had no acknowledgement at all - so a little tip for you all, I filmed all of the things that went wrong on the return flight and when I complained about the return flight (and the outward flight again) letting them know I had filmed they replied within 48 hours and agreed compensation within 72 hours.........

Hi Dan, I’m also a gold member with BA Took a flight to jfk with them a few weeks ago and it was the worst business class experience I’ve ever had. I’m disabled and was treated with disdain and a very poor attitude by one of the members of cabin crew which made me feel really uncomfortable. Other passengers around me were treated much better maybe because they looked like more ‘elite’ passengers than me. They also still haven’t added any tier points for my trip. Heathrow is an embarrassing airport. Leagues behind others in the world. I’m now decided to try and status match with another airline. Great videos by the way Dan.

That's why I always fly direct and spend more money on that rather than on the class. Takes out all this layover stress. Unless there is absolutely no direct connection and then I schedule a longer layover to reduce the risk of having to run around in a hurry or missing the connecting flight.

You talk about their WiFi being slow but you then tout Nordvpn which would make your WiFi even slower.

I think the pushback delays were because of the train cancellations and train strikes. Lots of government organisations (including border force, our train companies have been on strike). These have been ongoing for the last few months and probably explains why there are massive issues at Heathrow as people can't get to work or numbers are down.

Dan, listening to your review gave me so many flashbacks, my blood pressure went through the roof. I actually paused the review a few times to take a time out. Heathrow has been my Achilles' heel in terms of my business travels throughout my career. My probably final and last business flight was through LHR enroute to Lisbon in January 2023 and it was thoroughly disgraceful mirroring many of your experiences. Well done on your terrific channel, but sadly I don't think BA and LHR will lose a moments sleep. As for the laid back and charming customer service of BA staff and flight crews, it is tiresome, condescending and no longer acceptable. I've had my fill of being blatantly disregarded by BA and LHR. Never again. Keep up your excellent work.

I have flown BA only once in the last year (no other options) Heathrow - Milan route. The plane picking us up was 5 hours late due to being delayed leaving Heathrow earlier that day. When we eventually boarded, it was the last flight and we were told as we sat on the tarmac for another hour that the flight may not be allowed to land at Heathrow as there was no ground staff to receive the aircraft, and we may be diverted to stanstead. Amazing my we made it to Heathrow at about 1:15am when we should have arrived at about 8pm. Never had a smooth experience with BA since the late 1990’s

I had a really bad trip with BA a few weeks ago from Chicago (ORD to London (LHR) booked at business class. The plane arrived too late in Chicago so my night flight was postponed and American Airlines gave me a night at the Hyatt hotel. Next morning i came back to the lounge and they gave me a nice breakfast because that was not included at the hotel. The start at Chicago was delayed by nearly 1 hour due to technical issues at the plane. We arrived too late for my next connection because 10pm London Heathrow shuts down operation. There was no BA member to give us a hotel etc. Security people gathered all passengers and forced us to "sleep" at a gate. next morning i talked to the BA service at the counter and when i was asking why nobody was there the evening before I was threatened to be arrested by the security for being offensive - I was totally calm at this moment. I did this flight several times during the last years because my employer booked it. So our travel agency took care and refunds from BA took over 2 months. The BA people at the cabin were super friendly but besides that BA is a total mess and LHR is now one of the worst airports i have seen all over Europe.

Flying into heathrow is a nightmare at the moment no matter the airline you fly. The whole country is in disarray at the moment so this doesn't surprise me. Exact same thing happened to me when I came back from Sweden in January.

I had the worse experience in December flying Gatwick to Malaysia with BA. flight was 2pm and I arrived around 10.30 and queued to drop my bags in as I couldn’t check in online (other passengers told me later they couldn’t either). Suddenly at 11am, 5 Check in counters closed leaving just one open so the queue basically didn’t move from 11-12pm. Only one BA staff was around trying to answer questions but we weren’t told any information about why and what was happening. At 12pm they fast tracked all customers for a different flight leaving at 1pm to the front which like I said only 1 counter was open . Chaos ensued- everyone was shouting and everyone surrounded the BA staff- she said that the next shift doesn’t start until 1pm - people were angry and worried about missing their flights as we still hasn’t passed through security. That poor woman cried and I heard her walk away saying ‘ I can’t do this’. Finally at 1pm more staff turned up and opened the counters and it was still chaos , ppl just pushed passed us and swarmed to the counter. Me and my friend ran so hard and fast to get to the gate and made it at 2pm on the dot. Everyone was seated at 3pm due to the delay at the check desk but then they announced that we have to wait for 6 more passengers and at 4pm ,2 still haven’t turned up so they need to off load their bags which took another hour. Then they said we needed to wait for de icing which took another hour. And we finally took off just before 5pm. The flight attendant that looked after out section was so unfriendly and looked fed up. We were guna miss our connecting flight and the flight attendant told us that 230 Out of around 300 passengers have missed their connecting flights at this point. Absolute nightmare as the next connecting flight was in 12;hours. I would just rather pay more for a different airline next time

Well! I'm not surprised. Our last experience with BA will hopefully be our last. Heathrow is a circus run by clowns and when we finally got our luggage several days after our arrival it was clearly damaged beyond repair and we had to make a claim. We've instructed our agent to never, ever book us on BA again. It truly is a DISGRACE!

Last time we flew B.A., we flew overnight in business from Barbados to London in January 2019 and I got a salad, with a side salad - they'd forgotten to put the chicken in the main dish! Then in the morning I didn't get any breakfast because they'd run out! Their weird seat formation meant that when fully extended, if you were in a window seat, you had to step over the person next to you. I wonder what it was like in economy?? Never again! I'd rather change planes somewhere in North America with another carrier if I was going to the Caribbean again than fly direct with them.

Totally agree with the criticisms of BA. I have been a regular flyer with them for many years and have remained loyal due to what I perceived to be a superior level of customer service. About 4 years ago I first started seeing the signs of their decline. This included cancelled, rescheduled flights which I tolerated at first. A 1st class flight to Australia was pleasant but was comparable to business class on other airlines at best. After this the fall in service standards became the norm and it seemed that every trip would have at least one cancellation. Admittedly this would usually be a couple of weeks prior to flying but did mean having to rebook connections due to the changed schedule. It finally cam to a head this year when I was notified on the way to the Munich airport that my flight had been cancelled. I can understand that these things happen but the way BA handled the situation was Appalling. Basically leaving us stranded with no assistance (No presence at the airport and impossible to get through to assistance by phone). Furthermore. The 'next available' flight they booked us on was, in fact a later flight the following day with a flight with available seats before that. It was fortunate that I re-booked on the earlier flight as the later one was also cancelled. On a subsequent flight I had a similar experience with the added bonus of a member of the cabin staff that had no interest in assisting passengers. I am always polite and kind to cabin staff as, they have to deal with some really difficult customers but I do not think it acceptable to basically be ignored for the entire flight. Suffice to say. I am no longer a loyal BA customer and now use competitors unless BA are the only realistic option for my flight needs. I would not be surprised if their drive to make profit at the expense of quality of service will see them go the same way as other failed airlines in the not too distant future.

As a loyal BA gold card holder who has been flying with them for decades and former GGL member, I have to agree. I've never had any problems with BA's friendly cabin crew however the onboard product and its offerings is nothing in comparison to their competitors. It's been a shame to see their race to the bottom coming from someone who genuinely loves the airline.

I flew into Heathrow on Tuesday morning from Los Angeles on BA282 and the same problem at Heathrow still exists with problems regarding ground movement. The service on board from cabin staff is fantastic, but ground crew leave a lot to be desired. It’s turning into an expensive low cost airline.

Dan, I always love your videos as you show things as they are. You have a great balance of showing the best off and equally being to the point when things are not great. Seeing your Club World experience made me feel a bit better about my recent garbage World Traveller (Economy) Class experience. The "tired of life" older crew, the bare minimum catering, no amenities, aged aircraft and insanely high ticket prices mean only one thing. I have a choice of Airline and BA will not be that choice, at least not on longhaul flights anyway. The Management need to seriously boost staff morale and also inject the glamour back into Economy. It is very difficult to believe that 5Star Qatar Airways own shares in British Airways whose own onboard product is consistently below acceptable standard. As for the Heathrow Arrival issue, we went through this due to now resource from BA/Heathrow. Some of BA's Cabin Crew need to be trained how to smile by Thai Airways, taught the art of service by Singapore Airlines, the fun of Virgin Atlantic and the superior professionalism of Qatar Airways. The BA Economy Product needs to be refreshed by World Class Turkish Airlines. The Customer Relations team are just robots who treat you like dirt unless you are in First or a Gold Card Holder. Never will BA see my money again. I would only fly them domestically as there is no other choice. But as soon as there is competition I will stop that too !

My most disappointing experience with my BA flight was a 13-14 hour long flight from LHR to HND (and the same experience return). within a 14 hour flight we were only fed twice and if I remember food service started 2 hours after and about 2 hours before the end of the flight. being that there was a 9-10 hour gap between being fed. I was absolutely starving and you bet as soon as I was in Tokyo I found a konbini.

I flew BA from Heathrow Airport to Belfast Airport on 1st April, 2020. I believe it was one of the very few flights still operating within the UK, let alone outside the UK. The whole flight experience was fine, there were about 10 of us on the outward journey, and about 5 of us on the inward journey. Belfast airport felt like a haunted house, like an abandoned place, there barely were any people around.

My sister had a problem with BA in LHR. They sent a message saying that her flight has been canceled eight hours before the scheduled departure. Since her flight was scheduled to 8 AM, she was sleeping. So, she went to the airport. got to the Customers Service desk and the agent said that she supposed to call BA CS phone number to book another flight or pay for another ticket at the same day and BA someday would provide a refund. She decided to go to the Aer Lingus CS desk and they solved the issue. She boarded on an EI flight and she landed in DUB on time. BA is a mess!

Thanks, Dan. I am about to book tickets for the Christmas holiday. I was between the Thai Airways and the British Airways, and inclined to BA, because BA Business class seems to have the "door"(so I might be able to have more privacy). But your video plus the confirmation of the state of Heathrow Airport (stopover place) from my friends helped me to choose which airline company I want(yes, Thai Airways)

Great video, I went through terminal 3 during the summer. Security line was 3 hours and the terminal is a sweatbox- thing i've learned is to give yourself massive buffer time between flights or even stay overnight to break it up.

Well said. Our experience arriving in LHR from Geneva was a story in itself (I even live tweeted for over an hour). Flight had been cancelled twice. The long hold on the ground. The damaged baggage. The refusal to offer compensation for the cancellations. The losing of the suitcase when they came to pick up the damaged baggage. The pitiful offer of compensation for the lost suitcase. Ultimately, they’ve lost me as a customer and I will only fly BA from now as a last choice.

i worked for British Airways and its a very hard place as Cabin Crew to make a sustainable life down in London. The class has gone.

I flew from UK to Cyprus and it was IDENTICAL with Wizzair, the same plane type, the same configuration, horrible leg room and the trolley girl selling snacks and coffes, only one bottle of water for free....for triple the price of Wizzair

I so wished I have watched this video before making my decision to fly BA. My family and I had total 4 trips with BA during our Europe trip and all had insane issues. They have a habit of cancelling extremely last minute where some of my family got their flights cancelled without notification (u realise until u start looking for the gates), the rebooked flights get cancelled again and at the absolute last minute, they will notify u that they are not flying at all to the destination for the day. On top of that they lost their luggage (Manchester to London). Those flying through Frankfurt waited 3 hrs for their luggages after delays (literally whole day wasted). We then have a flight to Milan a couple of days later (where they tried to bump me off my fully paid Biz class seats with a one world sapphire status -- ok I know I'm not emerald but still!) and bumped my family members off the flight entirely and I only managed to save everyone after much protest, as we're travelling with elderlies and had connections the next day. The absolute nightmare was Milan back to London where they only told us 9 hrs before departure they are cancelling all Milan flights and we had a long connection flight back to Asia. The hotline was useless as it was a voice recording "we have too many requests right now and cannot take ur call, bye!" and then hung up. They are absolutely prepared to abandon their passengers last min and we had to find our own way to London last min. Luckily we were able to last min got Lufthansa tickets transiting through Frankfurt that added so much complication to the journey and left has absolutely no time to eat throughout the day, and needless to say the replacement tickets was insanely expensive coz it was so last minute. I get that airline travels are rarely smooth but wouldn't it hurt to let people know a bit more in advance? We got cancelled by AirFrance as well but they let u know 48 hrs in advance, automatically rebooked us to the next flight, with options online to choose another flight if we would like to. It was seriously fine, we just rearrange the water taxi and got to enjoy a bit more of Venice. BA just completely disregard people's time, schedule, and wellbeing. Oh and I forgot, the same people who lost their bags in Manchester have their bags lost again on their trip back to Asia, seriously what is happening

Awesome, honest and heartfelt video. As an aviator, the Speed bird call sign meant a lot. It was a recognition of a great airline that did things right. Many Atlantic crossings with our Speed bird brethren. It’s really sad that this proud airline has resorted to making excuses during noncritical situations. I hope they refocus on their priorities.

Dan, couldn’t agree more. My girlfriends flight from LHR to Toronto was overbooked this summer (by 37 seats!). She was going to a funeral and after being bumped but the BA customer service experience was appalling

Thanx for a to the point and honest review. brings back memories to the last time I came from Hong Kong. delayed 4 hours. missed my connecting flight to Stockholm. had to wait almost 9 hours to get a replacement flight . I was so tired and jetlagged. and your review brought this all back.I thought this was a one off. seems it was not. But thanx for your input. have a great weekend in advance.Tjena.

I haven't traveled through Heathrow or with BA in years for these reasons. I see horrible things like this all the time. I only really travel to Houston TX so I take the extra 4 hour drive to Manchester to get a direct flight on Singapore. You've just validated my views so I appreciate your candour

I’ve flown into LHR several times in the past and always via SIA or Lufthansa. Never tried BA after hearing so many horror stories over the years…

Really feels like everything is falling apart, not just BA. There's no resilience in any system. One small hiccup and delays/shortages are extreme. Society is highly strung.

Absolutely agree. Cannot ever forget the harrowing experience I had with BA when the flight was cancelled at Heathrow in Dec 2017. Have not flown with them ever since.

I've found, as you have - that being polite, showing a smile even in the worst situations, and not panicking, you will find someone to help you get through the inconvenience. I've been rebooked with upgrades, I've been shuttled to stay the night free at a hotel and been picked up in time for the morning flight. I've had flight attendants even move me to business class from economy. So, as I find often in life, a positive attitude and empathy for people who work hard and are faced with constant complaints during situations they can't control, I experience luck in my misfortune. ;-)

I met with a friend this week who is an airside worker at Heathrow. He told me that the work culture of staff on airside is disgraceful. Last week, due to a plane being delayed, he and a colleague decided to pick up two boxes instead of one to carry to the aircraft to save time and be more efficient. As they were about to reach the aircraft a union official screamed at them to stop what they were doing, return to where they'd come from, drop off one of the items and then go back carrying just the one item. This union official said that they were never to try and do something like that again, and no it wasn't a safety issue it was purely because that's not how they operate! My friend was disgusted, he said that the staff do the absolute minimum at Heathrow. He's only there temporary as he's waiting to get a pilots job.

I don't know if this is still available, but I used to fly Virgin upper class out of Heathrow. They would pick me up at my hotel and drive me to a private entrance where they would check my bag, check my passport and escort me to the lounge. Brilliant.

So 1 hour delay and its the worlds busiest airport.

You’re absolutely correct! I try to avoid BA and Heathrow for the same reasons. Service is not great and you have to deal with an airport that is over its capacity. What a mess!

about time someone has talked about this! Recently missed a connecting flight coming back from Istanbul with BA. Plane sat waiting for 2 hours after landing at Heathrow. Got bussed from terminal to plane and vis versa. packed like sardines. List goes on😓

Super glad you made this video, Dan! I just had a chance to view it. They were not this bad pre-Covid so I am in agreement with you about their focus now; profit over customers experiences. Even before Covid, I wouldn't pay for their Business class cabin even though I found their service to be ok just not for the asking price. Due to my OW elite status I got free upgrades from time to time over the years. Their ground services, security check at LHR after Covid are beyond horrible! Luckily since last year I made my connection for all my flights out of LHR. The most recent one was this past few weeks. The security staffs spent over 30mins going through my wife and my daughter carry ons suspecting that her lipstick and a small pocket camera might be explosive materials!!! I mean they slowly were going through each item in the carry ons as if they were contaminated or so dangerous! Anyhow, unfortunately, I don't have a choice and will have to fly through it again twice in Oct.

Looking at a short haul flight to Malaga, Spain with 2 options 08:05 BA flight from Heathrow £101 05:55 Tui flight from Gatwick £104 Will Tui be better even if I have to get up at 2am?

I am just amazed you managed to get through on the phone to someone from BA. I spent weeks trying to phone BA after I needed to amend something on a flight of mine from Edinburgh to London and I failed to get through every single time. I couldn't work out a way to talk to someone over the phone no matter how many numbers I tried to call. Eventually I make the decision to go to Edinburgh airport (which is 1h 30m away from where I live) to try and talk to them in person and I did eventually get it sorted that way. But a real inconvenience to have to use up my entire Sunday to go on a 3h round trip to fix a simple booking detail with my flight. I have solidly refused to fly BA since.

As a BA Executive club member, I 100% agree with the conclusion of your video. The lack of empathy, organization and resource makes my travels with BA never relazing but always anxious as to what will go wrong. Crew cabin need to stop gossiping as much and be empowered to assist in delay management much more effectively, the backup capacity at Heathrow needs to be upgraded substantially to accomodate the challenges of an airport operating at 99.9%. BA execs should travel undercover and really experience how inconsistent and unprofessional parts of their customer journey truly are.

Years ago, I flew on a chartered flight from Birmingham to Gronoble, with Ski Olimpic and was a BA flight. The plain was old and tatty. The year after Ski Olimpic used Flybe, and the difference was night and day. Even though Flybe was a budget airline, the service and plane were so much better. Unfortunately, Flybe has gone under as I used to like them!

2017 - I flew BA from Terminal 5 to Bologna and missed my flight because I couldn't find the gate. All the signs pointed with an up arrow which either meant "upstairs" or "ahead" and it was actually "downstairs". 2022 - I flew BA from Terminal 3 to Oslo and barely made my flight due to a 90 minute queue for security that snaked around the entire terminal and outdoors to the drop-off zone in 33 degree heat. On the flight home, (the day it famously reached 40 degrees), the take-off was delayed by about 40 minutes, and then we sat on the plane after landing for 90 mins, although I can't remember the reason. I claimed back the price of a taxi home and a meal from M&S as 'reasonable expenses' as nothing was offered as refreshments. I thought I was unlucky but this makes me think my experience was the rule, not the exception.

I believe it’s 8 times harder gaining new customers than keeping existing ones!

Hi Dan, having used BA regally for many years I agree with some of your responses, I agree the staff have always been great but people higher up are not interested in passengers, just profit. As a british customer, sadly its back to Emirates for me.

Thanks for your candid review. It conforms to my experiences of BA and Heathrow going back years. I stopped dying with them for the same reasons you recommend avoiding them.

Never underestimate the capability of the UK to completely fall apart once a bit of extreme heat or cold occurs hahahaha

Dan, if you want an experience that will make Heathrow pale by comparison, try Frankfurt. Getting 10 people through security takes 25 minutes, because airport personnel insist on organizing your X-ray tray for you, VERY slowly. This is the nation that went thru Norway in 4 hours! What happened to them?

You make vicarious travel as good as the real thing!

British Airways have announced yesterday, that they are on path to becoming “The World’s Favourite Airline” after bosses are fed up with constant failures, they will invest over £7 Billion focusing on over 600 problem areas within the next 3 years, they are revamping everything from IT systems, customer service, lounges, crew, aircraft, cabins and many more areas of focus.

The recent Skytrax report on BA expressed much the same concerns. They said that BA short haul is basically now just a budget airline experience, and long haul has a lot of problems and is more consistent with a 3 star airline. A very sad decline, illustrating how damaging thoughtless cost cutting can be.

Your summary towards the end was spot on. For years BA have prioritised profit over not only customers but staff as well. Before COVID was even a factor BA flight and cabin crew were striking over pay disputes. During COVID they laid off a huge amount of the workforce, particularly ground staff, hence the issues arising in the last 18 months. I’m 99% sure the issue was not that there was no bus or pushback tug… there was nobody to operate them. The workforce they laid off have found better jobs with better pay so have not returned. Maybe if they considered how they treated people rather than their spreadsheets they could solve these issues.

Thanks for bringing this into attention dan! I flow BA JFK-LHR-DEL-AMD and my heathrow bound flight got delayed thus missing my connection, not only that, I had to wait 8 hours there. It was mental

My best friend flew on BA business class and it was horrible. Every complaint you see on the the Internet is accurate, and my friend knew about it so she didn't have much expectations. But when they served her mushroom soup, the flight attendant actually spilt it onto the passenger next to her. The flight attendant just said, "Oh I'm sorry", continued to serve my friend's food and left. He didn't come back to offer any tissue to the poor lady or to check if that lady was okay. My friend had to give her all the tissue she had, that lady was wearing a white dress and she was just sadly wiping her dress for like half an hour. I mean seriously the audacity of the flight crew, they don't care at all.