Okay due to the clocks going forward in Bali by 7 hours all my blog dates seem to have gotten skewed but since I already did a post for the 1st Nov, this one will be the do-over day as it's the 1st still as I'm writing this? Odd but that's time zones for you.
So I arrived at London Heathrow at some god-forsaken time in the morning (5:05am I think), after traveling since 9am yesterday. I forgot to factor in the clocks going back 7 hours on arrival so have to wait around until 15:15 (about 10 hours). Heathrow is HUGE and I had to get two trains from Terminal 4 over to Terminal 5 (changing at Terminal 3). So if you have to fly from London Heathrow be sure to check which terminal you are flying from as it could make you late the time it takes to get from one to another.
Anyway, I got to Terminal 5 eventually and just in case BA has suddenly gone all customer-focused and now makes smart business decisions, I thought I would give it a try changing to an earlier flight. Went to the Standby desk as advised by a helpful BA member of staff (probably a contractor and not official staff). Got to the standby desk and there were two ladies waiting to help, a younger more smiley lady and Battle axe Betty, who looked to be starting her shift and was not best pleased about it. Lucky for me I got smiley Sam who I explained my situation to. She rang through to ticketing who told her I could change but it would be £396, GREAT I said, I'll take two. No, I didn't really I politely declined and said not to worry I would wait the 10 hours as it was my mistake.
Whilst waiting for Smiley Sam to get a response from ticketing I couldn't help earwig on the goings on next door at Battleaxe Betty's desk. She was mid-sanitising her station to start her shift when a very polite American Lady came to ask for help. She had missed her flight and needed to try and rebook another. "Sorry we can't book flights here" said Betty barely making eye contact as she had a monitor height to adjust and wipe down. "Oh this is where everyone I spoke to told me to come" replied the customer. Eye roll and huff from Betty and then she said "Can I have your passport" and then proceeded to tap tap tap on her newly sanitised keyboard. Now I didn't get the rest of the story as I was on my way to sell a kidney for £396 to get an earlier flight, but surely the correct first response would have been to ask for the ladies passport as see what she could do, if that's what she ended up doing anyway? Either you can help or you can't, Don't change tune mid-dance when you realise the "Computer says no" response didn't fly. I have yet to encounter a BA customer service staff member who isn't an over-the-hill, self-riteous, battle axe/queen who thinks they are above everyone and are doing you a favour to even speak to you let alone help you. Smiley Sam was clearly new to the game as she had to ask Betty who to speak to about the chance of changing the ticket. That makes me wonder, do all the Sam's of BA leave when they realise it isn't the customer-focused helpful role they longed to fulfill. Or do they all just try to fit in by adopting the same patronising, condescending, unhelpful attitude that the rest of their colleagues have, for fear of sticking out like a sore thumb? Perhaps the nice BA staff start off as cabin crew and after years of appeasing unreasonable imbeciles onboard (post on that later).they are put out to pasture on the customer service desk as they can no longer paint on that happy smile. I know cabin crew must have a shelf lif e cos I've seen what they have to put up with. Passengers walking around like something of sixth sense.
"I see dumb people, all the time. Walking around like regular people, they don't know they're dumb".
It's their turn to be horrible to the people who made them fetch and carry on board. Gone are their days of ice and a slice and hello to a shift of I don't have to be nice. After all if they are rude to you, there isn't anything you can do about it. They are the gatekeepers standing between you and freedom, so you have to smile and bite your tongue, hoping that killing them with kindness will make their cold heart melt and take pity on you. My how the tables have turned.
Now I must caveat this by saying that the cabin crew I have encountered (and my dear friend Jackie is an ex BA crew) are a different kettle of fish altogether and have always been very helpful and full of smiles and can't do enough for you. It's just a shame that their flying days may be numbered because of antiquated business practises* and the sour-faced attitudes of their "customer service" (and I use that phrase loosely) counterparts. People will get fed up with being treated like lesser beings and vote with their pockets and book elsewhere with an airline that treats them as a valued customer.
*This brings me to the illogical business practices obviously enforced from the top of BA down. In a time where getting a flight is now as commonplace as getting a bus why in the name of god would you think it is good practice to refuse to transfer someone onto an earlier flight that has seats empty? Take my situation, through my own fault, granted I booked a flight forgetting the 7 hour time difference. My fault completely, however, if I owned BA and had a flight due to depart in an hour with empty seats, the chances are I am not going to sell them within that next hour. It would make much better commercial sense to move someone from a later flight into one of those empty seats, so I could then have the opportunity to sell AGAIN the seat at 15:15 some 10 hours away. Especially when they could see from the load figures that the 15:15 flight was pretty full and in demand. They could probably charge double what I paid for my seat selling it to some businessman who wanted to get home in time for dinner? Sadly common sense doesn't seem to come into it and it has been that way since I worked in travel some 30 years ago. Might be time to start moving with the times BA???
Anyway BA monologue aside I grabbed some breakfast and found a charging point for my phone and laptop (this was gonna be a long do-over-day). Did the usual thing of pretending to be interested in 12 different fragrances whilst being followed around be over-eager sales assistants so I could grab myself a free spritz of one I liked.
Cos I had a few hours to kill I picked up about 5 different boxes of fragrance and one of the over-attentive ladies brought me a basket. I walked around for a bit and put all but one back on random shelves. Give them something to do putting them back, instead of pestering people.
As if my day couldn't get any better the flight was delayed and didn't end up taking off until about 5:3opm. It seemed like everything was against us and we boarding the plane, then there were no ground staff to load bags, and then we ended up in a queue for take-off :-/
The flight was very short but at least I'd get a sandwhich and. a drink as not eaten since breakfast. Oh no such luck ! When they made the announcement advising those in front of the curtain would get a choice of meal, drink from the bar you couldn't help but notice the "air quotes" in the tone of the attendant's voice when they said the riff raff would get complimentary, wait for it, bottle of water and a "snack". Oh well, it's not a full-on meal but a little snacklette. Queue the bag of ready-salted Tyrell's crisp! CRISP I tell yer. THAT is not what you can expect at my house if I offer you a snack! I eat a bag of crisp whilst preparing the snack! Anyway no sooner had we devoured our "snacks" and it was time to land.
My lovely friend Lynne came to pick me up from Picadilly train station so I just hopped on the train from the airport. She even brought me some shopping essentials for the morning bless her.
Quick pit stop to mums to collect my baby girls and then I was home in bed by about 8pm. BLISS.
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