Anybody on BA flight 2582 on 14th October from London Gatwick to Venice?

[pmymmw]

I have also posted this in the Europe board but thought I would post it here as well...

 

I was just wondering if anybody else on these boards was unfortunate enough to be on British Airways flight BA2582 on Saturday 14th October form London Gatwick to Venice Marco Polo?

For those of you who weren't here is a brief summary of what happend:

- The flight took off without a single peice of luggage on board for anyone on the flight.

- BA must have known this before take-off but no one was told until we arrived at the gate in Venice. This is very dangerous with current security measures meaning you can only take enough medication for the flight and the rest has to be checked. One of our party has diabetes and his insulin had to be checked, if we had been told before take-off we would have obviously got off the plane (finding insulin in venice on a Sunday is not easy)

- When we did get to the terminal in Venice there was not a single representive from BA to explain what was going on.

- We did not get our suitcases until we were on the ship the next day, over 36 hours after landing.

 

If anybody else was on this flight I would be interested to here if you complained to BA and what sort of response you got. I spoke to customer services yesterday and was pretty much dismissed out of hand. They simply did not care that they had completely ruined our day in Venice before our cruise (most of it was spent on the phone or at the airport trying to find suitcases, source insulin, calm down a worried mother (whose son it was has diabetes)) and caused serious mental auguish in worrying about a family member with no insulin. We have a flight booked with BA for next May to Venice and are seriously concidering cancelling.

 

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

Thankyou

 

P.S. even though the first 2 days were very stressful and the weather was not good we thoroughly enjoyed our cruise and are looking forward to being back on Splendour next May :)

[Globaliser]

I spoke to customer services yesterday and was pretty much dismissed out of hand. They simply did not care that they had completely ruined our day in Venice before our cruise (most of it was spent on the phone or at the airport trying to find suitcases, source insulin, calm down a worried mother (whose son it was has diabetes)) and caused serious mental auguish in worrying about a family member with no insulin. We have a flight booked with BA for next May to Venice and are seriously concidering cancelling.

 

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

Talking to customer services is, frankly, no good. You need to write to BA. You can get the address off the website; it's in Sudbury, IIRC. Post again if you can't find it. My advice is to write a proper letter, not an email. Reports are that they get taken more seriously.

 

If you were without your baggage for 36 hours, you should have been provided with immediate cash to buy necessities. If you didn't get this, you should make sure it's part of your complaint. If there were essential medications in the baggage, I would have expected some assistance to be provided with that. Again, if none was, make it part of your complaint. BA needs to know that its handling agent at VCE is hopeless, on this showing.

 

If you don't get a decent response, escalate it in writing. There have been times when "customer relations"-type letters from me have resulted in interesting and useful telephone conversations with senior BA managers.

 

You probably also have a good claim on your travel insurance policy for any expenses you incurred.

 

Hope this helps.

[High C's]

Unbelievable! The entire plane had no luggage??????????

 

We were on this same flight on Sept 12th, and only 3 out of our 4 bags arrived. There were about 7 of us on the flight that were missing baggage - all of us heading to the Grand Princess the next day.

 

We were directed to the "Lost Luggage" counter in the Arrivals area, and I must say the 2 ladies there were very helpful. BA had e-mailed already, indicating the bags were still at Gatwick airport, and they would be sent on the next flight out (later that day). Unfortunately, the lost luggage staff would be gone by then (they closed at 6 pm), so they advised us the bags would be delivered to the ship the next morning.

 

As good as their word, when we got on board, our bags were waiting outside our cabin door.

 

Yes, it caused us stress, and it certainly ruined our one pre-cruise night in Venice. But I was just so grateful to have my bags on the ship that I didn't pursue it. Plus, it was a very special cruise for us, celebrating our 25th anniversary, so we deliberately put the mishap behind us.

 

That being said, it is a very different circumstance when the ENTIRE plane is sent off without luggage. That to me is unheard of, and BA certainly has some explaining to do!

 

Good luck, and keep us posted. I'd love to hear their explanation!

[Globaliser]

That being said' date=' it is a very different circumstance when the ENTIRE plane is sent off without luggage. That to me is unheard of, and BA certainly has some explaining to do![/quote']I can imagine circumstances why: The chief suspect would be an incident in the baggage handling area that meant that the flight's baggage was not going to be delivered to the aircraft in any reasonable time.

 

I suffered a similar incident once, on arrival. There was a serious accident, involving injury, at the aircraft's side. The police investigation had to be completed before any baggage could be unloaded. That took two hours. We all had the option, of course, of leaving the airport without our baggage and making arrangements later.

 

Given the choice between flying at something near the scheduled time without baggage, and being delayed for many hours (with consequent knock-on effects for hundreds of other passengers downroute and, later on, back at Gatwick), most passengers would opt for flying and having the baggage catch up later. And the highest-yielding (and therefore commercially most important) passengers would be foremost amongst this group. Unfortunately, it's not a good solution for cruise ship passengers for whom timely baggage delivery is more important than for other passengers.

[pmymmw]

Given the choice between flying at something near the scheduled time without baggage, and being delayed for many hours (with consequent knock-on effects for hundreds of other passengers downroute and, later on, back at Gatwick), most passengers would opt for flying and having the baggage catch up later. And the highest-yielding (and therefore commercially most important) passengers would be foremost amongst this group. Unfortunately, it's not a good solution for cruise ship passengers for whom timely baggage delivery is more important than for other passengers.

 

Globaliser, normally I would agree with you about this but as we were travelling with a Diabetic who only had 24 hours worth of insulin (due to new hand baggage rules) we would, of course, have decided to leave the plane. I, think more to the point, we were not given the option and were only told out baggage had not made the plane when we got to the terminal in Venice.

[wdrl]

I think that you should not only write BA but the Dept. of Homeland Security and TSA. Sometimes luggage will be delayed for reasons beyond the control of the airline (as stated in prior posts). But is a person who needs the medication to do?

 

--Denise

[Globaliser]

Globaliser, normally I would agree with you about this but as we were travelling with a Diabetic who only had 24 hours worth of insulin (due to new hand baggage rules) we would, of course, have decided to leave the plane. I, think more to the point, we were not given the option and were only told out baggage had not made the plane when we got to the terminal in Venice.

Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression that I think that BA was right in the way it handled this. The position that it put you in could potentially have been life-threatening. I was just trying to give an example of why such an "unbelievable" event might have happened, and why the flight might have been dispatched even though no bags could be loaded. You should definitely pursue the complaint.

[Globaliser]

I think that you should not only write BA but the Dept. of Homeland Security and TSA.

And just what do the DHS and the TSA have to do with a flight from London to Venice?

[wdrl]

Sorry, maybe the UK Department for Transport instead, www.dft.gov.uk .

 

But since the United States is now requiring a restriction on medication carried onboard for overseas travel maybe the ones I mentioned previously need to know the problems that can occur and are happening. And all of them and/or the airlines need to come up with some plan to help the traveler who arrives without their checked luggage and therefore does not have required medication.

 

--Denise

[Globaliser]

And all of them and/or the airlines need to come up with some plan to help the traveler who arrives without their checked luggage and therefore does not have required medication.

Actually, the passenger's first port of call should always be their travel insurer. A good insurance policy will (for example) pay for replacement medication to be flown out to you, wherever you are, if it cannot be obtained locally with the English-speaking medical assistance found for you by the insurer.

[pmymmw]

Just thought I'd give you a quick update.

I got a call back from BA customer services yesterday and Globaliser was correct, it was pointless speaking to them. They were very unapologetic and unhelpful, basically saying that there is always a risk that these things can happen and it is not their responsibility and they do not porvide conpensation for delayed luggage.

 

I am now going write to BA, but was thinking of sending copies to Watchdog and possibly ABTA, do you think this will help?

[Globaliser]

I am now going write to BA, but was thinking of sending copies to Watchdog and possibly ABTA, do you think this will help?

Don't do that at the beginning. Ideally, you want a quiet, amicable and reasonable resolution of this problem. Raising the temperature and the profile at the beginning will not help; it will tend to entrench BA in a hardline position.

 

If you have to escalate it, do so internally first, for the same reasons. But let's hope you don't have to get that far.