http://www.ba.com
75-20 Astoria Blvd
Jackson Heights, NY 11370
(800) 545-7644
How to get through to an operator: press 0 at each prompt, ignoring messages.
Overview
British Airways is the first foreign carrier to get its file, and for good reason. I’ve received an unusually large number of queries about lost luggage, delays in processing lost-luggage claims, and fees relating to overweight luggage. Most of the complaints involve frustrations with its automated system that processes consumer inquiries in North America. British Airways only accepts faxes through it — no calls — and is slow to respond, according to many passengers. Often, grievances appear to be ignored altogether.
Important: Please do not copy everyone on this list when you send a grievance. Start with the Web form and then go up the chain only when the airline doesn’t respond.
If you have a customer complaint, please read this before contacting the company.
Customer service resources
General Conditions of Carriage (US)
Customer relations
Email form
Primary e-mail
webform@contact.britishairways.com
Primary contact
(Note: I have received one report that the email addresses are bouncing. It is possible that these executives are being overwhelmed by mail, and that their “in” boxes are full. On the other hand, it’s possible that they’ve changed their email addresses in order to avoid contact with customers. Anyone with insights into this, please contact me.)
Silla Maizey
Acting customer service director
+44 20 8738 5117
silla.maizey@ba.com
Chief executive (*)
Willie Walsh
Chief executive officer
+44 20 8738 5117
willie.walsh@ba.com
What others have to say about British Airways
Consumeraffairs.com
Epinions.com
My3Cents.com
This information has been collected from publicly-available resources and is believed to be accurate at the time of the last update. If any of this information is inaccurate, please e-mail me.
* Executives should only be contacted when your letter or email has not been acknowledged within six to eight weeks.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
FYI:
I tried to contact BA under Maxine Haywoods address and the email was immediately rejected. I subsequently tried to send to the other email addresses and have not yet received any rejections or replies.
Dear Sir i send my complain to cutomer relation but they are not replying it is a matter of misbehaviour and food collecting from trash and garbase and giving to customer pl send me proper person email add thanks arjunpande
Hi,
I’m just handling the worst experience ever with BA and wish I had heard any of this before…
I made a booking, economy class, and then upgraded with mile to Business.
Few things happened, I had to change my flight (this was London – NYC – London by the way) but was told I could not cancel just the return flight as it was booked economy with restrictions, which I agree.
So then I asked if it would be possible to cancel the upgrade just on the return flight (as I would not be taking this), the lady who I spoke with on the phone was not sure if she could do that without charging me a fee (?).
For some reason, they cancelled my whole upgrade and she even “wrote on the notes” that I had been advised that I could not cancel upgrade in 1 way only; it had to be both ways or nothing. Now, had I been advised of such I would have never gone ahead with the change in the first place.
And how convenient it is to “write notes” about the conversation between agent/client. I also wrote my notes, but they only accept their notes to be true.
They are now refusing to give my seat back, unless I pay $7,000!!!!
No one respond to emails, some of the agents are really rude.
Although I am a Silver Club Card Member, I will not travel BA ever again!!
About the change of plans I mentioned somewhere above; my return will not be to London but to Buenos Aires. I called BA, made the booking, asked if they had any seats available for upgrading with miles, was told no. Fair enough.
I paid for my upgrade, and right after they had charged my credit card (nearly $3,000) they CANCELLED my booking (?).
These are the most unreliable people in the world. The CEO, Willie Walsh, has no idea what so ever of what he is doing – not saying I would do a better job, but taking as an example AA – BA do not know how to handle complaints, nor how to handle important issues, this is one of the most unorganized airways company ever!
…But then, United Kingdon is the most unorganized country/Kingdom I’ve ever been to. Everything you do here, you need to send on paper, by post or courier, and also need a proof that it was delivered; and you still got to go to court sometimes to solve the matter.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Mariele
Hi why British Airway are doing such cheif thing collecting food from trash garbage and giving to passenger on complain no responce
I am a broke college student in Washington D.C., and recently booked a 4 way flight for my Dublin summer internship with stops in Munich and Rome. It cost me nearly $1600 2 days ago for restricted economy fares, and now (only 36 hours later) the flight pachage has gone down to $1100!!!
I called the local reservations desk and the manager was rude and unhelpful, she actually said “too bad.” Then the customer service desk in Harmondsworth just said the same thing. I understand the concept of a non-refundable fare, but this situation is completely unacceptable. This multi-billion dollar corporation is cheating this poor college student out of $500! It is really sad that they must resort to such unfair business practices.
I wrote an email to CEO Walsh and will write a letter to the customer service manager listed here. But for those of you who would like to get directly through to the main customer service phone the # is 011 44 870 766 3481 from the US. The desk manager in the US refused to give it to me and I found it online. Just in case someone else refuses to give it out.
I booked my tickets from Boston to Chennai at BA.com on Apr 16th at 10 AM for travel from July 3rd to July 20. I checked for the fares again later on the SAME DAY at 10PM for the same travel dates and flights. The fares have dropped by more than 200 dollars without any changes to my original itinerary within 12 hours.
When called to BA customer service to help me to refund the difference, they were cold and basically helpless and said we cannot do anything as you have paid already. I have been flying BA frequently for the last 5 years and expected some customer satisfaction, looks like BA is letting me down.
Did any one here have any luck with BA on these kind of issues
Thanks,
Siva.
A recent 6 day trip to Paris via JFK>Heathrow>Charles DeGaulle. 5 cancelled flights (2 being our return flights–with no call or email!), baggage lost at both ends of the trip (the latter being four of 28,000 pieces sitting in Heathrow and not returned to us for a week). To avoid getting home late when Heathrow troubles could not guarantee a flight home within a day we had to buy 4 tickets on Virgin Atlantic at $2000 EACH. From my son’s college savings. We just want our $8000 back. Hope this site gets us the info and phone numbers we need.
Never, ever in a million years would I ever fly British Airways again! First off, anyone traveling through Heathrow should know that their policy is to have the boarding pass in hand a full 45 minutes prior to departure. You should also know that Heathrow is a large airport with five terminals and getting information on which terminal your flight leaves from is nearly impossible. Moving from one to the other is an exceedingly lengthy trek and can easily take you 30-40 minutes. Should you miss their 45 minute policy on boarding passes, you are directed to a line of 2 miles long of other sorry chaps who have also missed their British Airways flights (yes, they don’t care if you cry). Upon talking with a British Airways agent, she will tell you that your missing the flight was due to the travel agency not giving you enough information on which terminal and their 45 min policy, and that she cannot change your flight, BUT is happy to sell you a new ticket! Lovely. You pay through the nose to purchase WHAT YOU THINK IS A NEW TICKET, only to find out later that the agent LIED TO YOU and merely changed your original ticket to a new one and charged you more than you paid for the initial ticket. Yes, this just happened to us. A simple flight from London to Helsinki ended up costing us almost $2,000 for two people. Not round trip, but one way. Allow me to repeat: NEVER, EVER FLY BRITISH AIRWAYS!
I live in the USA, am British, and rarely travel BA.
Why? Because after 35 yrs of traveling the world, the occasions when I fly BA still go into the realms of one’s worst travel fantasies.
All the above and others? Been there, done that? My first flight in over 2 yrs with them has just gone nuts, all to do with seat allocation and arrogant helpers [other than those who are honest, wish it would change and say they have no route to the MBA riven management].
C’est la vie, just don’t travel BA unless one has to.
Clive H Jones
On Monday Feb 2 there was a big Snow Storm in the UK and the London area was hit hard. There are 3 main Airports in the area with Heathrow being the biggest ( City and Gatwick the other 2) there is reliable news reports that Heathrow is reeling from the delays and canceled flights.
BA almost never answers the phone
Sometimes because they are “closed”
Most of the time – because their call volume is too high.
NO – they do not place you on hold
YES – the automated line HANGS UP ON YOU.
When you do get through, it is almost a certainty that you will be
put through to a different department…. it is brutal in its lack of
effectiveness.
Now imagine a company like this getting hit with 36 hours worth of cancelled flights out of such a busy airport like Heathrow
I have been living in London for over a year now and what someone emailed here already is completely true, this is THE MOST unorganized country I have ever experienced. Their banking system is similar to the US in the 1970’s (prior to computers) The culture is one of unbelievable fear of self responsibility. Although there are some of the best individuals in the world here, they themselves endure a life surrounded by some of the lamest people you could never want to meet.
But it is worse, there is a systematic ingrained culture of deviant acts, The government is the worst culprit. It is always someone elses job and that person is not available, The notion of taking your name and contacting you to follow up is not happening, You must call back to chase another person down, the list is a mile long of this lack of help that goes on from the coffee shops to the police to the government, to the banks, to every corner of life here.
I bring this up here, because the tricks are the same, switching email addresses, publicly posting fax numbers that are 1 digit off. no way to establish proper communication with a department or representative to resolve a problem or complete a task… It is almost like a strange movie, there may be a website, but it does not function, and the prevailing conclusion is simple:
YOU THE CONSUMER ARE THE ONE AT FAULT
YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS MISTAKEN
YOU ARE THE ONE THAT IS NOT FUNCTIONING CORRECTLY
Sincerely
Don Crawford
“On March 14th, 2008 at 8:11 am Mariele Beckert said:”
…But then, United Kingdon is the most unorganized country/Kingdom I’ve ever been to. Everything you do here, you need to send on paper, by post or courier, and also need a proof that it was delivered; and you still got to go to court sometimes to solve the matter.
Thanks for letting me vent!
Mariele
Just flew Club LHR-DFW R/T. A smooth professional flight, excellent service, a personable, charming crew, excellent lounge in LHR.
Just as a counterbalance to all the other stuff.
My Parents are leaving back on 22nd October to Chennai from Seattle through British airlines. This is first time for them and they can understand very little English. They both are elementary school teachers.
Do you have any suggestion to arrange with British airways to help for my parents?
If any leaves the same day that can help, please email me at rajbab2002@yahoo.com or call me at 425-591-6842
Thanks,
Rajanbabu
Rajanbabu, BA has a service for unaccompanied minors and i am thinking that something similar may apply in your case. Check the info at http://www.britishairways.com/travel/childinfo/public/en_gb?gsLink=searchResults
Morever, i would just call BA and ask them about your situation, i am sure they face it very often. I would guess the one thing that your parents need the most, is for someone to explain what will happen during their trip so that they know what to expect (flight-lenght, meals, entertainment, immigration if any, etc) and for a BA representative to escort them from the gate of their first flight to the gate of their connecting flight. BA has various services, so again, just call them up and inquire about the best way to assure your parents make it to their next flight on time and without a problem. :)
Look at this page too http://www.britishairways.com/travel/disabilityassistanceinfo/public/en_gb
All of you please go to the http://www.flyersrights.org and sign a petition. Next file a complaint with FAA online. http://airconsumer.dot.gov/problems.htm
These are the only proper channels that are voices will be heard. Everything else is useless. They are currently helping me. This is easy to do. Take 5 minutes out of your time and please follow through.
Thanks
Due to a traffic accident blocking the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, I could not get to the airport in time. In fact, I even called BA one hour before the flight departed, telling them that I was stuck on the bridge, moving nowhere. I was on my way to Scotland to be the best man of a dear friend’s wedding. British Airways would charge me $3000 to put me on their next flight to London (the following day), or otherwise I could just forget about the whole thing. They were incredibly rude and couldn’t care less about my situation.
Accepting the situation I found a reasonable cheap one-way ticket with Air NZ. So I called BA back to make sure they wouldn’t cancel my return trip. To my great surprise, they refused!!! They simply said that my ticket was useless now that I missed my first flight, and there was no way I was getting on that return flight (unless, they said, I’d pay the $3000). This is nuts! I can’t believe the absolute disregard BA has for their passengers. Instead of helping a really unfortunate passenger out, they try to make a profit on his desperation. Shameful.
In the end, I booked a return flight with Air NZ for $1700.
Hi,
I am a Travel Manager in Texas who has been heading a large agency for about 6 years now. Wow, am I having the worst issues with BA right now. I have a 7 segment flight roundtrip from Lubbock to Heathrow and then on to Prague and home from Vienna. It is plated on BA except for the LBB-IAH flights. Yesterday I went in to check my itinerary and query about seats on BA.com and noticed that the CO flights weren’t there anymore. I looked in SABRE and sure enough everything was still there. I didnt’ pay attention to the booking class because they were ticketed and paid for by a VISA card back in August. Today I received a notice in Sabre from BA saying that I needed to update my record because my itinerary didn’t match my E-Ticket. I immediately called BA and they told me that I had cancelled and rebooked my entire itinerary yesterday and that I would need to pay the upgrade difference (around $2000.00 total). I have spent all day today on the phone with them trying to put it back the way that I ticketed it and paid for. I have called the BA TA help desk three times and now they won’t even speak to me. They told me I would have to wait 5 days and then they would check and see what the fare difference would be that I need to pay. You talk about a dirty airline! I don’t know how we let these companies get away with this?? I want to just cancel the whole trip and lose my money rather than give them another $2000.00. I would do that but I am afraid they would just send me a debit memo and try to collect the difference in fare even after I cancel. I have received the rudest, most unhelpful responses today. My guess is because I am a TA. We always get punished for trying to sell the airlines products! Help!!!