British Airways Are Shit As Well
I was just re-reading my Alliance & Leicester rant just now, and it reminded me of another example of absolutely appalling customer service from someone you’d expect more from. British Airways.
I was on a morning flight to Europe with my wife – not a long flight so we hadn’t expected to eat on the plane, however when the flight staff announced they were serving breakfast, we thought we might as well get involved.
My wife’s a vegetarian, so she politely asked if they had a vegetarian breakfast, on the off chance. (Remember I said we weren’t expecting to eat, so my wife hadn’t booked a vegetarian meal like she would normally.)
So, the stewardess comes back with a meal, strangely already open, and says:
“There you go. That’s a vegetarian sausage”.
She actually said the words, that’s a vegetarian sausage. Of course, it wasn’t a normal vegetarian sausage, it was an usual kind that’s actually made of meat.
Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure that vegetarians don’t normally eat bacon, but sure enough there was half a rasher hidden at the bottom of the food packet, presumably not noticed by the cretin out the back who thought I know, instead of just admitting we don’t have any veggie food because no-one booked any, which isn’t unreasonable and so the lady would probably accept that, let’s just fish out the bacon and pretend that a meat sausage is a veggie sausage cos they’ll never realise!
It was one of those moments where you just look at each other, stunned with disbelief that there are actually people in this world, who are responsible for the safety of hundreds of other people, and yet are also complete fuckwits.
BA’s response to the complaint was a generic email along the lines of “we’re sorry for whatever it was that was wrong with your flight. Have a money off voucher for when you fly with us next time.”
Why do so many companies think that’s reasonable compensation? If I went out and shot someone in the chest, I wouldn’t consol them with the news that the next time I shot them it would only be in the leg.