Our part of four was delayed both ways between San Diego and Pisa causing our family to be split up with three of us stuck in London overnight No compensation or upgrades were offed and we missed work as a result Food very poor and we declined two of the four meals offered I will affirmatively avoid flying British Airways from here on out
I was downgraded from business class to economy class with no compensation. American Airlines is absolutely the worst airline for international travel. They treat their business class customers like dogs.
Must have had an elderly tour on the trip. Plane boarded via tarmac and had both front and tail stairway access. We waited about ten minutes at the rear entrance while elderly folks entered the forward access and walked all the way back to last rows of the aircraft! We could not access the row until every one of them finally reached the final rows. There should have been an agent directing folks Forward and Aft based on seat row. It was comical.
The flight was good. It arrived at Heathrow on time but then there was no transport to take us to the terminal. We sat on the plane for an hour waiting for a bus. I will avoid Heathrow if possible in future. The crew were very apologetic.
I paid for full WIFI- it was terrible, kept being in and out could not listen to a podcast
Boarding was chaotic. Glad we were group 5 and still had cabin storage available when we boarded. I was expecting crew would get our carryons at the gate since theyclaimed it was a full flight.
The trip from Portland to Italy was great. However, the trip from Italy back to Portland was terrible. We started off leaving an hour late from Pisa to Heathrow, which then made it too late to reach our connecting flight. We were instructed by a flight attendant that we needed to go to "anyone of their colleagues" and we would need to change our connecting flight. Once we finally found someone from BA and stood in the long line of other passengers. Someone from BA came up to us while in line and asked if we were re-booking due to a delay coming into Heathrow. We told them we were, and she asked if we even checked to see if they already re-booked us. Nope, didn't know they would do that, so yes, they did in fact re-book us to a flight that would leave in 45 minutes, and we didn't have a boarding pass. "no problem just go through security and tell them you don't have a boarding pass" - It doesn't work that way. No one including security knew what to do. They kept sending us all over the place to people that didn't know what to do. Finally made it through security (after 30 minutes of everyone trying to figure out what to do with us). BA put us on a flight with Delta so we had to go to Delta to get our boarding pass. Flight was already closed, so Delta said "you need to go back to BA". Waited in line for 30 minutes due to only 2 people trying to help everyone. She got us out on a new flight that left the next day, with a connecting flight to Seattle. They put us up in a hotel that was obviously run down with a lot of passengers from BA. They told us to come down and get dinner - sent to a buffet and told we had to sit in the back of the restaurant. The buffet was not good. However, we hadn't eaten all day, so we were both starving. They had a vat of a meat sauce that said "chicken sauce". I started eating it (on tope of the rice they had) and just about chocked on a chicken bone and then found several other chicken bone slivers. The other dish said "chicken curry" tried that instead and there were whole large bay leaves that I didn't see (because it was dark in the back of the restaurant) and got one caught in my throat. Frozen mixed vegetables that said "fresh steamed vegetables" nope. Got to the airport early the next morning so we could make sure there were no issues. Flew out from Heathrow to Seattle (crew was great) landed in Seattle 20 minutes early, but couldn't get off the plane for 1/2 hour. Our connecting flight was in 2 hours. Got off the plane, and it took 1 1/2 hours to get our luggage. After 30 minutes, I went to BA's customer service desk to see if she could help. Her response was "it's not really my issue" after 3 passengers told her to make it her issue and find out what was going on, the luggage stared coming out. Needless to say, we missed the connecting flight again! BA had rebooked us with Alaska for our connecting flight. So glad they did, because Alaska was fantastic! The rebooking process was much easier and they made sure we got out of Seattle that day so we could get home. All in all, I will never fly British Airways again.
British Airways is fantastic. I am low-vision and they were so helpful and accommodating. The food was all surprisingly delicious. That was an unexpected treat. The best of everything though was how helpful and friendly the service team was.
British Airways delivered the experience you would expect when traveling First Class. While other airlines have forgotten what it means to deliver First Class service, BA went the extra mile to deliver a real first class experience. In this world that is charging first class prices for second class service, our experience what quite a surprise. Thanks you so much. We'll be back!
Boarding was disorganized. I was asked to check my carryon luggage when I had a tight connection to JFK. I purposely did not pack a large luggage because I did not want to deal with checked luggage getting lost or the hassle of retrieving my luggage at JFK.
