Irgendwann war es dann soweit und wir waren zurück in Deutschland.

BA904 gelandet in Frankfurt

Von Bangkok aus ging es mit Qantas nach London Heathrow. Von dort folgte noch der kleine Satz mit British Airways über den Ärmelkanal zurück nach Frankfurt. Auf einmal saß man mit lauter Geschäftsleuten in einem Flugzeug, wo waren die anderen Backpacker und Reisenden hin?

So richtig glücklich schauten wir bei unserem letzten Flug übrigens nicht aus der Wäsche, wir waren dann – bei aller Freude, wieder mal heimzukommen – doch eher wehmütig.

Die Beschwerde bei British Airways hat doch was gebracht. Mit Ruhm bekleckert haben sie sich zwar nicht unbedingt, aber immerhin: Ich habe einen 70-Euro-Gutschein bekommen. Reicht ja schon fast fuer ein billiges Hin- und Rueckflugticket Frankfurt-London, und sowas kann ich erfahrungsgemaess immer mal gebrauchen!

Dear Sirs and Madams,

I was referred to customer relations by the service desk in Heathrow. (…)

I was booked on BA911 on May 15th (Frankfurt->Heathrow) with a connection to BA247 (Heathwrow->Buenos Aires). Due to air traffic control problems the first flight was delayed for several hours and I missed the conncetion in Heathrow. In the end, I arrived in Buenos Aires almost 30h later than scheduled. I understand that such an incident is beyond the control of British Airways, however, the way one deals with it is not.

Upon landing in Heathrow we were told on the airplane that the passengers with connceting flights should “follow through arrivals”. Of course I did so. In the baggage claim area of Terminal 5 I found BA staff and explained my situation. They told me, since my luggage was already checked through to Buenos Aires, I should just go to the BA desks in the departure area. However, all desks there were closed and there was no BA staff at all! It was somewhere around midnight by now and I was unable to find anyone from BA to give me assistance. There were also no services running anymore (like the Heathrow Express), just a few construction workers and cleaning personnel was around. Since I had no idea on how to proceed now (when would another flight to Buenos Aires leave? Would BA pay for a hotel if I even managed to get to one near the airport now on my own?) I had to spent the night on a chair in Terminal 5! I can tell you that was not a nice night, without food or any help from BA, and that was definitively not what I expected when I bought a OneWorld/BA-ticket. It took until about 6am on May 16th until I found someone from BA in Terminal 4 to give assistance. From there on it went well, I got vouchers for breakfast, a hotel room for the day and a rebooking for the evening.

I´d like to stress that the service and assistance from BA staff was good when I had the privilige of receiving it, but it is outragous to let paying customers spent the night in the departure hall without *any* assistance or even just information.

Ï´m looking forward to hearing from you soon and would appreciate an apology and an offer on how British Airways is going to compensate me for the ordeal.

Yours sincerely…

…schreibt British Airways gross am neuen Terminal 5 in Heathrow. Und das war dann auch mein new home, zumindest fuer letzte Nacht. Der Flug Frankfurt-London hatte rund 4h Verspaetung (und ich hetzte mich vorher so zum Flughafen und Gate!), der Anschluss nach Buenos Aires natuerlich weg. Und in Terminal 5 war dann kein BA-Mitarbeiter mehr, der haette weiterhelfen koennen. Immerhin, von einem Flughafenarbeiter habe ich Decken und Wasser bekommen und vor dem first-class-check-in gab’s eine schmale Couch.

Bin jetzt auf einen Flug ueber Rio de Janeiro gebucht, der heute abend ab London geht. Ankunft in Buenos Aires am Samstag mittag, also ueber einen Tag Verspaetung.