British Airways: Redefining "Sucktastic" for the 21st Century

I've arrived home, no thanks to BA. Already having endured the wonders of BA287, you can imagine my reaction at seeing this upon arrival at SFO:


.....oh BA, not again. Even before checking in, some dude was handing out "We're sorry, but.." letters so I knew it was gonna be bad. As it turned out, the plane was indeed delayed for a stupidly long time but we didn't plunge out of the sky - hey, bonus.

Of course, this meant I had to be ultra-snappy when getting to Terminal 5 to ensure I didn't miss my connecting flight. Imagine my dismay, then, when it turned out that the following snazzy electronic poster:


.....would turn out to be spectacularly incorrect.

As soon as you get to the departures lounge, there's no indication of where you're supposed to go. Do I stay in the same terminal? Do I have to catch one of those bus things to the other buildings down the road somewhere?

No idea. Sadly, I made the fatal mistake of asking British Airways staff. Before you knew it, they'd sent me downstairs to the bit where you catch the bus where I was told "Terminal 1" by some guy who could barely speak English. Not entirely convinced, I asked the woman at the Terminal 1 bus departure gate only to be told "Terminal 4".

Well holy crap, SOMEONE tell me where to catch the damn plane. Can't be that hard, can it?

As it turns out, yes. Yes, it can. Not long after the guy who told me Terminal 1 mocked me with a "Why could you possibly want to go upstairs?" type comment, someone else came down and apologised profusely because......the plane was leaving upstairs from Terminal 5, and there was no way back up the escalator.

A few minutes of shouting later, and they let me go back up in a freight elevator of some description, but of course it was too late and my plane was already flying off into the distance. I did feel better giving the Terminal 1 guy the two finger salute, but not by much - especially when it turned out that the next plane would be something like FIVE HOURS LATER (of course, it was delayed severely which meant a grand total of seven hours of swearing and ranting but it's entirely academic by this point).

Even trying to use a phone to let people know you weren't dead was an exercise in futility. Approaching the helpdesk (no more than ten feet away from a non-working payphone), this is how it all went down:

Me: Hi, are there any phones working yet?

Some stupid woman: Sorry?

Me: When I flew out last week, none of your payphones were working and I'm guessing it's still the same?

Some stupid woman: We're having problems at Terminal 5?
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Well, BA ain't getting one over on me again. Spying the first class lounge off in the distance (and watching my fellow cheap-seat passengers being turned away with hopeful cries of "but I have extra legroom seats!"), a quick burst of the old "walk backwards while saying goodbye" trick later and I was confronted with free food, booze and all the comfy seating I could handle. I know it looks like I'm hiding under a table in the first picture, but I swear I'm not:




After stuffing my face with all the pasta, noodles and muffins I could cram into my gob I started looking round for something a little more fun:


Oh, free booze? Don't mind if I do. I pretty much nuked the free drinks bar. Well actually, all the free drinks bars. Then I made all their free Internet access Terminals look like this:



Aside from tales of lost luggage, some of them linked to the BA287 flight writeup from the week before, so I'm sure they appreciated that too. In fact, I made sure lots of articles like this, this and this were popping up all over their desktops. Enjoy, BA, enjoy. It's all for you, baby.

I finally arrived home God knows how many hours after the whole shambles started, and can't say I was surprised to see a pile of people stuck at my final destination asking where their luggage had gone:


Someone at British Airways needs a good kick to the face. A sustained and brutal beating, actually. Cries of "Don't Taze me, bro" will only have the exact opposite effect. Not only will I never fly with them again, I'm happily going to encourage people not to fly with them either.

You should too.