Empty seats anger stranded BA flyers
by Helen Nugent and Joanna Bale

The Times (London)
August 15, 2005, Monday

BRITISH Airways faced a fresh row last night over flying with empty
seats while refusing to take passengers still stranded at Heathrow
airport by last week’s wildcat strike.

Customers who had been stranded for 72 hours after a walkout by
baggage handlers reacted with disbelief when they learnt that they
could have been spared another night of sleeping rough.

BA’s rivals leapt upon the latest disclosure as a further public
relations disaster for the company after the walkout last Thursday,
which delayed more than 100,000 passengers and cost an estimated
£40 million.

Around 600 frustrated travellers were still waiting for their flights
last night and BA admitted that the backlog would take until tomorrow
to clear.

However, the airline refused to say how many flights had departed
with empty seats in first and business class because of its refusal
to offer an upgrade to marooned economy-class customers.

Passengers advised by their travel agents to request an upgrade were
told that the airline’s policy was to keep economy ticket holders in
economy class despite the long delays, The Times has learnt.

A spokeswoman for BA admitted: “Some flights have gone out with empty
seats as our policy has been to keep people in the same class as their
tickets. However, we have upgraded some people on a discretionary,
case-by-case basis.”

She refused to reveal how many economy passengers were upgraded and
how many empty seats in other classes were left unfilled. Customer
groups criticised BA’s attitude.

Ann Hervey, of Holiday Which? said: “These people have had a hideous
experience and as a matter of policy you would want BA to do whatever
was possible. It is a matter of good customer care. You would expect
them to do everything in their power to get passengers to destinations
as quickly as possible.

“However, deciding who gets the better seats could be difficult as
they risk everyone demanding an upgrade by way of compensation.”

Rival airlines also expressed disbelief and said that their own
approach would have been different. A spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic
said: “Our priority would be to get passengers to destinations as
quickly as possible and to give them the best possible experience
after the distress of being delayed for so long.”

A spokesman for American Airlines said: “We would do everything
possible to get passengers away if seats were free in the aircraft.”
Sebouh Nahabedian, a financial analyst from New York, and Ara
Asatoorian, a transport consultant from Los Angeles, said that they
were astounded when a BA manager told them they could only have seats
in economy class, no matter what seats were free in business class.

They were supposed to fly to Armenia from Heathrow on Thursday but
were told by BA that they could not leave until Sunday. But when they
rang their travel agent in the US, they discovered that business-class
seats had been available on Saturday’s flight.

Mr Asatoorian said: “We rang BA and asked if we could be upgraded but
the guy would not do it because we had economy tickets. We asked if
showing up at the airport and waiting to see if the business seats
were claimed would help but he told us that if that were the case
then those seats would fly empty. The guy said nothing would help.
That was just the cherry on top of the whole situation. This trip
has cost us each $ 3,000 (£1,600) and we have missed three days of
our conference. The business-class thing was unbelievable. The guy
just would not budge.”

Helen Shepherd, 41, was flying back to Cape Town last night. The
housewife said: “I think it’s disgraceful that BA didn’t upgrade
economy.”

Under Article 8 of the European Passenger Rights Regulation, passengers
are entitled to rerouting under comparable transport conditions to
their final destination at the earliest opportunity if flights are
cancelled. However, it was unclear last night whether passengers
would be entitled to challenge BA’s refusal to upgrade them.

A BA spokesman said last night that it was back to 95 per cent of
its scheduled service at Heathrow.

“Everybody who was on a cancelled flight now has a reconfirmed
ticket. If they’re not going out today, they will be going out in
the next day or two,” he said.

–Boundary_(ID_RAUOH8zHxd840Rxyv31zJA)–

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress