My loathing for airlines has been well documented on these pages (couldn’t be bothered to find the links, you’ll just have to take my word for it), but even my cynicism about their foul underhandedness was insufficient to prevent a full-blown RCOB when I read this little tale:
British Airways has been accused of leaving customers high and dry after cancelling thousands of flights before hiking up their prices.
Passengers snapped up bargain fares earlier this year after tickets to Dubai and Tel Aviv were being sold for as low as £167.
But the airline claims the cheap offers were a mistake and sensationally cancelled all tickets on Friday – prompting fury among customers.
“Mistake”… yeah, I bet it was, you godless cocksuckers. Note the unapologetic “fuck you” statement at the end:
‘Errors like this are exceptionally rare, and if they do occur, under contract law, there is no binding contract between the parties.’
I will never forget how BA fucked me when the family flew to India many years ago. We flew into London, spent the night out near Oxford, then flew out the next day to Bangalore. Our checked luggage was weighed at Heathrow, and was not overweight (as I recall, the limit was about 50lbs per bag — 22kg?).
Imagine my surprise when I checked in at Bangalore Airport (itself a fucking nightmare) for the return journey, only to find that BA’s “allowable” weight for the return trip had shrunk to 40lbs. The choice was to pay the (exorbitant) weight penalty, or call The Mrs. to catch a cab to the airport to fetch the stuff that constituted the excess. (She was staying on for a week to finish her training gig.) Of course, option #2 was never going to happen because in Bangalore’s notorious traffic, it would have taken her two hours to get to the airport, and our flight was leaving in one hour. So I paid — I forget how much, but $400 per suitcase (three) seems to come to mind. And when I complained, I was simply told to fuck off and die that I should have read the small print in the ticket “contract” — and when I did, I found that the smaller return allowance was indeed noted — on page 12, in tiny print.
I have been angry with airlines on many occasions, but nothing beat my ire at BfuckingA on that night, and I swore never to fly them again. I managed to keep that promise for many years, but last year I was forced to fly with them (twice!) because I had no choice.
No doubt I’ll have to use these amoral fucks again in the future, but I am going to be extremely wary.
Considering that all airlines nowadays seem to treat us oh-so-inconvenient passengers not as human beings but as self-propelled cargo, it seems as though we have little choice in the matter.
A pox on all of them.
Buses with wings. Nothing more. All of them.
I’d rather drive ANYTHING than fly.
Me too, but there’s that Atlantic Ocean thing…
If you’ve got the time, go olde school, go steam ship to cross the pond. That mode of travel may be from a by-gone era, but it suits you.
It would be very, very interesting to see what the economics would look like for a modern ocean liner. Not a cruise ship, mind, but a proper get-somewhere-at-30-kts liner. I suspect it might be a money-maker.
You still got to go through TSA to get on a boat, sad to say.
Here in the UK I try to let the train take the strain. An overnight train to London is so much more congenial than an early-morning flight.
I had to make a fast trip last week on SW Airlines, two plane trips up and two back and they are buses. I saw two flight attendants on different flights that were close to 275-pounders, big blonde German Farm Girl looking women and of cause the nice overworked granny types. The airports are overpriced food and drinks bus stations, crowded, smelly and kind of trashed up with badly dressed people bumping around like zombies looking at their phones.
My reminder of why I drive most every time no matter what the distance.
Re the “mistaken” ticket prices. I remember a time when the company would have bitten their lip, kept their end of the bargain and some airline employees would have been cleaning out their desks.
The son and I are flying on Spirit Airlines this evening. They sent me an email to pick our seats – for $15 a piece. Screw that, we’ll take random seats for free.
Took BA across the world twice.
The first time, the flight was delayed for 12 hours (which meant two free hotels in Sydney and London, plus meal). That didn’t bother me too much, but having dried vomit on the seat did. And they threw a towel over the spot. For a flight from Sydney to London.
On the return trip, I had a bulkhead selected, as I’m just tall enough to not really fit comfortably in economy over 12+ hour flights. BA had graciously put a mother & infant in the same row, and the father in another part of the plane- we wound up trading seats.
I’ll stick to Qantas for Pacific travel.
I’m becoming convinced that for the American carriers, at least, the FAA needs to impose Minimum Standards of Service.
“I’m becoming convinced that for the American carriers, at least, the FAA needs to impose Minimum Standards of Service.”
What? What? I’m bestirred from my wine soaked doze of the late evening to shriek: “Socialist! Socialist! Get thee gone lest we drive a stake through thine vile heart.”
If you don’t like their product, walk to your destination, or start your own fucking airline.
Check google finance. BA, which is IAG.L is making money. Lots of it. Ignore what people say, watch where they actually spend their money. We like buses with wings. We like to be crowded, fed junk food and treated like crap.
Any fule woulda known that had he paid any attention to Indian railways.
We’re hairless monkeys. We like uproar, distraction, trouble, nonsense, enough discomfort to make us feel tough and the possibility of doing ‘it’ in a small room five miles up.
Am pleased to report that my personal grudge/boycott against Braniff Airways shows no signs of reduction.
LOL HB