Angry Customer Buys Promoted Tweets To Bash British Airways

An anonymous reader writes "After the airline lost his father's luggage (and presumably was less than helpful in resolving the issue), one man decided to use Twitter's self-serve ad platform to issue a warning to fellow travelers in the New York and UK markets. The tweets have gotten the attention not only of media outlets, but also of fellow airlines. A JetBlue executive even retweeted it. While companies use the platform to target customers, it's interesting to see it being turned around."

Comments

Incoming

[TheSpoom]

Libel lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

Re:Incoming

[alen]

every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you

yes it sucks, but it happens to every airline every day. this is like the idiots who switch wireless carriers every week because of some perceived slight in customer service or they can't get 10 bars at home 24x7

Re:Incoming

[TheSpoom]

I didn't say they'd be right or prevail, I just expect a lawsuit to be filed.

Re:Incoming

[Anonymous Coward]

But is it libel if it's true?

Prove it. In court. Under absurd amounts of cross-examination conducted by an army of lawyers.

Oh, and court cases take time, time which cuts into you earning money, time which can be trivially manipulated by lawyers familiar with gaming the system.

But maybe it's true after all! Once you're long since bankrupt, maybe someone will care!

Re:Incoming

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. Under US law truth is an absolute defense from a libel suit.

My understanding is under British law the matter is a little more complex....

Re:Incoming

[MickyTheIdiot]

The tweet that I saw says "bad customer service." I doubt you are going to be able to prove that libelous.

Re:Incoming

[chrismcb]

every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you

Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.

Re:Incoming

[gstoddart]

That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.

In my experience, United Airlines is shit, don't care if they're shit, will tell you point blank you shouldn't expect anything but shit, and would you like some more shit?

When a company ignores you, blows you off, or does absolutely nothing about your complaints, I think something like this is brilliant.

Sending a very public "fuck you" is sometimes the only recourse you have for companies who have lousy service. If they're going to act like "too bad, we don't care" -- pointing that out for all to see isn't such a bad idea.

I've never dealt with BA, but I've certainly encountered companies whose customer service is so terrible as to make you think they're doing it on purpose. And those companies deserve a little public shaming sometimes.

Re:Incoming

[TheSpoom]

Indeed, according to Wikipedia:

English defamation law puts the burden of proving the truth of allegedly defamatory statements on the defendant, rather than the plaintiff, and has been considered an impediment to free speech in much of the developed world.

I'm sure the law is more complicated than that (and Wikipedia isn't the greatest source in the world) but it could get hairy for the guy.

Re:Incoming

[Minwee]

Don't ask for legal advice on Slashdot. Their service is horrendous.

Re:Incoming

[Russ1642]

So what? They all do it so it's ok? What's your point? They deserve every bit of bad press for losing luggage.

Re:Incoming

[alen]

there are pretty clear standards for libel
even if you can't afford a lawyer, its not that hard to prepare for an initial hearing and ask for summary judgement for it to be dismissed. of course that would mean that you tried to go through BA to find your luggage and they failed and didn't compensate you and whatever.

Re:Incoming

[MightyYar]

In the early 2000s I had a two Sprint phones on a family plan. For a year, I checked our usage almost daily on their website. One day, it stopped working. The first-line idiot said that it still worked the same way it did when he was hired 6 months ago. I asked him whether he thought I was crazy and he said, "Well, I guess I don't know." I spoke to his manager - same line: you have never been able to do this from our website. Either guy could have at least pretended to believe me, but that's customer service gone right and they were all about getting it wrong. How hard could a bug report be? I cancelled my service on the spot.

Had I been able to buy a Tweet at the time, I might have. Complete incompetence.

Re:Incoming

[h4rr4r]

Some lose more luggage than others, some will go beyond the written terms to help you. Just like some carriers are nicer to deal with than others.

Re:Incoming

[mspohr]

Au contraire...
I've found that I get great service on Slashdot for legal questions. You can ask anything and get lots of different answers in minutes. None of these people are actual lawyers but that doesn't stop them from expounding at length (as if they were getting paid by the hour) about any subject. The usual barriers of accounting for different laws in different jurisdictions are never a problem here. You can get legal advice for any country just by extrapolating answers from the five or ten countries represented in the typical answer set.
Best of all, it's free and open source!

Re:Incoming

[ackthpt]

But is it libel if it's true?

Truth hasn't stopped a charging lawyer yet.

Re:Incoming

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But is it libel if it's true?

In Britain? Absolutely.

Re:Incoming

[Cyberax]

Not possible. There's nothing libelous in the statement that some company's service is bad, since there's no accepted absolute scale of good/bad service.

If he claimed that BA's flight attendant raped him and killed his mother - that would definitely be a libel.

Re:Incoming

[MightyYar]

Yes, and Hasan Syed appears to be a subject of the Crown, so he's probably in trouble.

Re:Incoming

[Frobnicator]

But is it libel if it's true?

In the US, no, truth is an absolute defense against libel claims.

In the UK, it can be considered defamatory even when true.

And in either country the cost of defending against the lawsuit can be prohibitive regardless of the outcome.

Re:Incoming

[squiggleslash]

Yes, because corporate libel actions have such a good track record of making the allegedly libelled plaintiff look good.

Re:Incoming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It is well known, though, that Britain is a Very Bad place to be sued for libel. My guess would be that BA isn't going to push it, because they'd rather just have the thing blow over; but British libel law is brutal. (Incidentally, American feelings on 'libel tourism', the practice of suing people in the most favorable venue, were so strong that the "SPEECH Act", which makes all foreign libel judgements unenforceable by US courts unless compliant with 1st amendment standards, passed unanimously in both the house and senate. That's crazy rare.)

Re:Incoming

[egamma]

But is it libel if it's true?

His tweet said "their customer service is horrendous." That clearly makes it a matter of opinion, which is protected by free speech laws in the US. However, British laws are much more "protective" of the "victims" of "big meanies" who share their opinions in public.

Re:Incoming

[Dominare]

No, it isn't. IANAL, however I believe defamation is legally defined as untrue statements that harm public perception of a person or business. If your statements are true, they are therefore by definition not libelous.

Re:Incoming

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"every airline loses luggage and has rules on how much they will reimburse you"

Incidentally, while airline staff will, at times, attempt to lowball you, they can sometimes be...encouraged... to be more helpful by the implication(ideally true) that you are familiar with the 'The Warsaw convention (as amended by the Hague and Montreal protocols)' if your dispute involves luggage, 'Regulation 261/2004' if your dispute involves flight delays, being bumped, etc. and falls under EU jurisdiction. Trying the same with 'Rule 240' in the US is just a bluff these days, though it sometimes works; but a familiarity with the airline's "Contract of carriage" isn't...

Re:Incoming

[RoccamOccam]

How dare you! I've never heard of a class-action libel suit; but, buddy, you're in for one now!

Re:Incoming

[AmiMoJo]

Since it's a civil action it's based on a balance of probabilities rather than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt. Having the defendant carry the burden of proof seems reasonable to me - if I claim you do something that might damage your reputation in private I should have some proof of that. How could you be expected to prove a negative?

Re:Incoming

[PRMan]

Strange. Because that's the attitude I associate with Delta and especially American, and I have had great service from United and have flown them dozens of times. And in the couple instances where I had problems, they were able to come through and go above and beyond.

Re:Incoming

[PRMan]

Why would you need to check your usage on Sprint? Was this for call usage?

Re:Incoming

[gander666]

As a million mile flier on United, I would like to add:

There was a time when loyalty was rewarded on United. But those days are long gone. Yes, I get permanent gold status, and free checked bags, but every other attribute, I am treated as much as shitty as the holiday cheap fare fliers, even when I pay full coach fares. Fuck UAL with a chainsaw.

Re:Incoming

[gander666]

No, as one of their top tier fliers, I get treated like shit from them. Funny thing is, back in the late 1990's when I started flying, they were awesome. But post 911 and security theatre, I get the bone like the common fliers. Alas, they have some of the best routes to Asia, so I must use them.

Re:Incoming

[crafty.munchkin]

The way Lufthansa handled my wife's lost luggage during her recent trip to Europe was absolutely pitiful. The staff were utterly horrible, and despite promises that she would be reimbursed for everything she had to replace during the 11 days the luggage was missing (on a 15 day trip), we are still waiting for reimbursement 2 months later, having even taken everything to the nearest Lufthansa office in another state for verification. Their call centre staff are ridiculously rude - I will grant that their English is better than my German, but to then have to chase them repeatedly and take all the items plus receipts on an interstate trip at our own expense and even then not be reimbursed is just terrible.

Re:Incoming

[rockout]

Alas, they have some of the best routes to Asia, so I must use them.

"Well, no reason to stop treating this guy like shit!" --United rep

Re:Incoming

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Prove it. In court. Under absurd amounts of cross-examination conducted by an army of lawyers."

In what jurisdiction on which planet is a company going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an army of lawyers to get money from a guy who is judgement proof? I can literally guarantee you that they will not file a lawsuit, not only for the aforementioned reason, but because they would be laughed out of court by the judge. Even if that were not true any trial would draw attention that would make the incident more public, and have jurors. The likelihood that all 12 had never had a bad experience with their company is low, even considering that jury selection would allow them some control over it.

Re:Incoming

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.

And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.

Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.

Re:Incoming

[Moof123]

Yep. If UPS or Fedex had a lost package rate anywhere near what the airlines do there would be riots in the street and mass lawsuits by big shippers who had to eat the losses. Imagine if you had a Jeff Bezos/Amazon using their rather large soap box to bash a bad shipping company.

How come such bad service and terrible (i.e. non-existent) bag tracking is just fine for airlines handling your neglige, but not OK for a UPS/Fedex getting it to you in the first place?

Heck, a $4 cable from Chine via ebay gets better tracking than my luggage on a $2k trip to Alaska.

Re:Incoming

[UnknowingFool]

Just last year one of my local HD channels went out on my TV. Just that channel. All my other channels seem fine. So I get into a chat session with a technician. He sends out a guy a few days later and I had to be home. The technician can't find anything wrong with the signal but can't fix it.

So then I chat again with cable company. They try to send another technician. I ask for tier 2 because they already sent a guy out. At first the tier 2 technician tries to tell me that my plan doesn't cover HD channels. I respond that by law, cable companies must offer local broadcast channels which this one was. Since the digital switch over, all my local stations were HD and digital. There wasn't a disagreement between the cable and the network (like with CBS and Time Warner right now).

Tier 2 Technician doesn't believe even after I link him the FCC ruling. I keep asking him if I wasn't supposed to get HD then why do I get all my other local HD channels? Exasperated he gives up and forwards me the local technical number which they should have done in the beginning. The local technician fixed it right away.

Re:Incoming

[Tom]

That doesn't mean that some companies aren't so egregiously bad at customer service that you wouldn't walk away from doing business with them.

Exactly. The one thing you can always do is vote with your money.

When the german Bahn AG (train company) was stupid to me about a 40ÂâÂdispute, I told them that in my business position I control a couple thousand Euros in travel budget going their way - or not. They blew me off, I told my secretary to always check alternatives and book them if they're the same or slightly more expensive from now on.

When O2 was stupid to me about my (rather small) mobile contract, I told them they could be nice to me or I'd cancel my much larger phone and DSL contracts as well. They didn't listen, so I move all my business elsewhere. When I got the usualy retention call, I told them why.

It is unlikely that your move will get as much attention and most likely it'll all get lost at the customer service level. I used #o2sucks on plenty of my FB postings while the above crap was going down, but I don't think it got very much attention.

But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice. And if ten or a hundred thousand do it, they just might smarten up. And if they don't, they might go belly up and good riddance. But someone has to start, so be that someone.

Re:Incoming

[MightyYar]

Yes, we had 500 phone-to-phone minutes and 750 "anytime" minutes, plus some night and weekend minutes. Each phone had its own balance, and you could call in to check the balance or you could look it up online. Until you couldn't. This is the dark ages.

Re:Incoming

[Tom]

That's a Euro sign up there - € - in correct UTF-8. When will /. arrive in the 21st century?

Re:Incoming

[Quirkz]

Man, I hated sprint. Around that time you also often had a separate carrier for your landline long distance. Multiple times my long distance contract account switched from one carrier to Sprint without my approval, a practice known as "slamming." I finally convinced the local telco not to ever let my account be transferred under any circumstances, but you had to ask the question in just the right way. But I also swore I'd never do business with Sprint because they were clearly doing something really scummy.

Re:Incoming

[interkin3tic]

GP was responding to "is it libel if it's true." If every airline does it, then it could be argued that "Their customer service is terrible" isn't true because it's relatively normal.

Some legal expert could say whether relative would matter, I just wanted to point out that "Alen" may not have been simply a brain-dead apologist for shitty airline treatment.

Re:Incoming

[xaxa]

You do realize in the old days cell phones were expensive right? My first contract was 35 cents a minute @ $35 /month for 100 minutes.

In 1997 I (well, my mum) would have had to pay 50p/minute (minimum 50p) if I'd called her. Around 70-90c, I don't know what the rate was back then.

Fortunately, we had a system: 3 rings, I've missed the bus and will be late (on the next one); ... I can't remember any more.

(Also, the phone was about £25, so the calls were really expensive to make up for that.)

Re:Incoming

[metrix007]

Why would a British judgement be enforceable in the US in the first place?

Re:Incoming

[MightyYar]

Comcast (or whatever your cable company is) has such bad customer service that I would actually move to Verizon if they offered competitive internet. And that says a LOT, because I've cancelled Verizon after their shenanigans.

Re: Incoming

[mrbester]

For the same reason US copyright law is deemed enforceable everywhere else on the planet: fuck you, that's why.

Re:Incoming

[fish waffle]

In my experience, United Airlines is shit, don't care if they're shit, will tell you point blank you shouldn't expect anything but shit, and would you like some more shit?

and they break guitars.

Re:Incoming

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience with United: My previous flight was delayed so the connection was close. I got to the gate and they said it was too late and I couldn't board, even though staff were still going out. The plane sat at the gate for another half hour, it was the last flight of the night, and they didn't so much as give me a fucking pillow. I was a day into what I'd called "recovered" from the flu, and I had to switch between using my coat as a pillow and to keep me warm. Fucking cunts.

Re:Incoming

[worldthinker]

I've had "delayed" luggage on 2 occasions. On one occasion, I had arrived at the airport much earlier than normal and was a very early check-in. Yet, somehow, my luggage didn't make it onto MY plane. I suspect it was a weight and balance issue as I had observe them actually take luggage off the plane. (It was a regional jet)

At my destination, I was told they would deliver my luggage the next day. They did, but I had to purchase toiletries and lounge/sleepwear to tide me over.

I've been told that theft and wilful damage to luggage is not a rare thing in that industry.

Re:Incoming

[worldthinker]

United was my "hometown" airline when I lived in Chicago so flew them frequently. I generally had good experiences with them. Towards one of their bankruptcies, their planes started to get rather dirty and the incidence of cancelled or severely delayed flights went up in my experience.

I haven't flown them since their merger with Continental - an airline which I was not inclined to fly based on past experiences.

Re:Incoming

[bistromath007]

It's the UK. Their libel laws are bullshit. This guy is going to get his asshole blown up.

Re:Incoming

[Zcar]

It's pretty routine to be able to go to another country for enforcement of civil judgements. For the US, look up the Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgments Recognition Act, which is law in a number of states.

Re:Incoming

[BrokenHalo]

The tweet shown with TFA simply says "Don't fly with British Airways. Their customer service is horrendous".

Not only is this entirely plausible, on the basis of anecdotal evidence, but any attempt to sue him for libel for such an innocuous comment would be doomed to ignominious failure.

He is perfectly at liberty to express his dissatisfaction with their service. If BA doesn't like it, they can always try pulling up their game.

And for what it's worth, a shitlist is as just as useful as a recommendation. As every corporation knows, a satisfied customer might tell a couple of people, but a dissatisfied customer will tell at least ten.

I used to maintain a shitlist (LG electronics goods are at the top), but now I check reviews before I buy. I'll sometimes accept one negative review in 10 as an outlier, but 3 or more is usually enough of a flag to tell me to look elsewhere.

Re:Incoming

[mjwx]

Libel lawsuit in 3... 2... 1...

Having read the article, it's a bit too generic to be a case for libel or deformation.

All it said was "dont fly @BritishAirways their customer service is horrendous" which is an opinion rather than slander. If he had of said "Dont fly @BritishAirways, their CEO sleeps with boys" then it would be deformation and they could sue the pants off him (well, assuming it's not true).

Re:Incoming

[mjwx]

Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.

And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.

Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.

I RTFA'd.

The tweet said "dont fly @BritishAirways their customer service is horrendous" which is a valid opinion and very neutrally worded (and given my personal experiences with BA, entirely true, I swear they're run by angry Scottish grandmothers). Hard to tell what his grievance is here. This is a pretty big non-event. Guy buys tweet, guy posts generic message, goes viral. I guess it's a slow news day.

But I completely agree with your point, some people are utter tosspots when dealing with airlines (or anyone really). I've had two significant problems with airlines, both were sorted out within 20 mintues by me simply explaining my predicament to the airline rep in a calm and polite manner. When you're nice, people are more likely to help you.

Re:Incoming

[BrokenHalo]

I've been told that theft and wilful damage to luggage is not a rare thing in that industry.

I personally know 9 professional musicians who have had musical instruments smashed or seriously damaged by Qantas, and here's another one that happened just a few days ago.

Re:Incoming

[BrokenHalo]

But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice.

Trouble is, far too many large companies are so arrogant, they stick to their "Fuck You!" line until their business goes to the wall. There was notorious case here in Australia recently, where Vodafone lost over 550,000 customers in less than 6 months.

Re:Incoming

[BrokenHalo]

Ask me in 87 years' time.

Re:Incoming

[baegucb]

Odd. I was always told phone rings on cell phones are phony, just an artifice.

Re:Incoming

[CycleMan]

But someone has to start. And if you move your business away from the crap companies, they won't even notice. But if a thousand people like you do it, they'll start to notice. And if ten or a hundred thousand do it, they just might smarten up. And if they don't, they might go belly up and good riddance. But someone has to start, so be that someone.

Brought Arlo Guthrie to mind:

You know, if one person, just one person does it, they may think he's really sick and they won't take him.
And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
They may think it's an organization.
And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out.
And friends they may think it's a movement.

Re:Incoming

[tlambert]

Yes, but some airlines/airports lose luggage more often than others. And some airlines are more helpful than others when they do lose the luggage.

And some customers are real douchebags who take affront at everything and are unreasonable no matter how hard the agent is trying to help.

Bottom line is - we don't know where the line is in this case. This guy may have a completely legitimate grievance, or he could be raising hell because BA wouldn't compensate him $500 a bag or give him 10,000 free travel miles. We just don't know.

I find it difficult to argue with success; they were apparently able to find his father's lost bag.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/furious-british-airways-passenger-uses-promoted-tweet-to-complain-to-world-about--lost-luggage--104029390.html#PTH3eTh

One has to wonder if they would have found it had he gone through normal channels; it certainly took more than 20 minutes (it was 4 hours before they contacted him back over the initial complaint).

Re:Incoming

[guruevi]

Most likely it's not the airline that handles your luggage but a local (unionized) airport service. They're typically manned by ex-cons and others that for some reason can't get anything else at minimum wage. Then there are their friends over at DHS that screen the luggage with very sticky fingers. Try leaving jewelry in your luggage, you've got pretty much 50% chance that it will disappear. My friend used to work at DHL, those people would simply come pick up TV's from the DHL loading area and drive away, they gave the guards their cut, usually a bottle of something and it would simply remain unpunished.

Re: Incoming

[metrix007]

That's because of a UN treaty.

Re:Incoming

[GNious]

Clearly you've not flown KLM :)

I'm fairly laid back, but it only took 1 completely effed up flight with them, for me to call my travel-agent and inform them to never book that particular company ever again.

Re:Incoming

[mjwx]

Clearly you've not flown KLM :)

Admittedly, I never have :)

I try to fly Asian airlines (Singapore, Cathay, Thai) whenever possible, as the service and food is miles above everyone else.

Flying QANTAS or BA tends to leave a bad taste in my mouth every time.

Re:Incoming

[beelsebob]

In all honesty, having crossed the atlantic with BA, AirFrance, KLM and American Airlines, BA is by far the best of those 4, shorty followed by AA.

Re:Incoming

[N1AK]

His tweet said "their customer service is horrendous." That clearly makes it a matter of opinion, which is protected by free speech laws in the US. However, British laws are much more "protective" of the "victims" of "big meanies" who share their opinions in public.

To try and put in context. As long as the guy had a genuinely difficult/unhelpful time dealing with BA customer service then he's fine. If that isn't true, for example they responded quickly and repeatedly but he ignored it. He shouted and was rude to them immediately on the phone making it impossible for them to capably serve him etc. In those circumstances they would have valid grounds for libel in the UK because what he is saying isn't true. Though BA would never pursue it because it would simply make it a bigger story.

Re:Incoming

[ruir]

Only 50%? Jewellery, money and electronics are screened for in the x-rays. I have have the true ridiculous tale of my father luggage being held for 40 minutes more in Maputos airport just they could cut out the toy compass it had. On the other hand, once I flew a notebook to HP for Germany for assistance under their warranty period, and did the mistake of leaving there the operating system, fully bootable with automatic login (it was Windows 98 days), fully customised with Office, etc etc, and a RAM expansion fitted in. The notebook was fully and dully registered and insured by HP, never arrived to the destination. Luckily they gave me a new one. However without first calling me a liar about the RAM expansion. Between that, and having to flown it, it was my first and last Compaq/HP notebook. I also had a mobile taken from me from the x-ray of the hand luggage, under the pretence it got a malfunction and they were "fixing" it (i.e. they saw it in the x-ray, and grabbed it).

Re:Incoming

[Tom]

Trouble is, far too many large companies are so arrogant, they stick to their "Fuck You!" line until their business goes to the wall.

Yes.

I fail to see the problem. A company like that should go out of business. If it happened more often, the surviving companies would be more customer-friendly, because the other ones are all done.

Frankly, we have too many small companies failing and way, way too few large ones.

Re:Incoming

[xaxa]

Ah, I was calling a landline from a mobile phone which she paid for (since I was 11).

Also, it was 1997. The network system might have been different.

Re:Incoming

[MysteriousPreacher]

Do have any solid numbers for this? I was trying to get a comparison but haven't had much luck. It's either based on news articles from 2012, describing losses by airlines, or it's a slightly esoteric method of calculating shipping company losses from insurance costs.

Re:Incoming

[MysteriousPreacher]

You can avoid arrest in the UK through a number of useful strategies:

1) Fact: A policeman cannot legally arrest you if they're not wearing their hat. Steal their hat and they can't do anything about it.

2) Fact: It's perfectly legal to urinate in public so long as it's done on the back wheel of a car, while keeping one hand on the vehicle. Do this on a police car.

3) If arrested (obviously for reasons unrelated to points 1 and 2) refuse to answer to your name. Explain that you are a sovereign citizen, and that you acknowledge neither the entity to which they refer nor their authority over you. If they won't let you go then demand they respect the United Federation of Planets' Prime Directive, and urinate on the arresting officer. Under cat law, the act of urinating on something makes it the property of the urinator.

4) Get a job at HSBC. Gun running, drug smuggling - it's all good when your employer is too big to fail.

I am not a lawyer. Nothing in this post should be construed as creating an attorney client relationship.

Re:Incoming

[isorox]

In all honesty, having crossed the atlantic with BA, AirFrance, KLM and American Airlines, BA is by far the best of those 4, shorty followed by AA.

Air France isn't an airline. It's a part of France in the air, so is hideous.

AA's new 773 I believe is ahead of even BA's 773s, but if you're on an older AA flight there's no comparrison. BA you get a bed, AA you get a seat.

Re:Incoming

[isorox]

Only 50%? Jewellery, money and electronics are screened for in the x-rays.

I have have the true ridiculous tale of my father luggage being held for 40 minutes more in Maputos airport just they could cut out the toy compass it had.

On the other hand, once I flew a notebook to HP for Germany for assistance under their warranty period, and did the mistake of leaving there the operating system, fully bootable with automatic login (it was Windows 98 days), fully customised with Office, etc etc, and a RAM expansion fitted in. The notebook was fully and dully registered and insured by HP, never arrived to the destination. Luckily they gave me a new one. However without first calling me a liar about the RAM expansion. Between that, and having to flown it, it was my first and last Compaq/HP notebook.

I also had a mobile taken from me from the x-ray of the hand luggage, under the pretence it got a malfunction and they were "fixing" it (i.e. they saw it in the x-ray, and grabbed it).

I ship electronics all the time in the hold. Most recently took some laptops to India, some hard drives to Kenya, and they all made it fine. If the USA has a bigger problem with corruption than those countries, you've got serious problems, and need to seriously rebuild your country from the ground up.

Re:Incoming

[yacc143]

All airlines mis-route luggage, and it is fairly rare to lose lose, as in never see it again.

Yes, the issue here is delayed luggage is in many ways, lost. Depending on the content, the delay and where your destination is (when returning home, more things don't need immediate replacement), you need to replace the not-lost-but-delayed luggage content.

Considering that luggage claiming often takes over an hour, every routine commuter knows to stick to pure carry-ons if at all possible.

Re:Incoming

[chad_r]

Traveling from New York to Hungary, I have had baggage delayed twice. American Airlines had a special car drive the bags 2 hours to my location the next day, and gave a $100 reimbursement for emergency replacement of items for that missing day.

British Airways is another story. The bags hadn't arrived in Vienna when we arrived. The whereabouts were unknown, but the next day they showed up at the airport. We couldn't communicate with the airport baggage handlers directly to give them our address; we needed to fill out a form with BA and they would telex -- TELEX -- the information to the airport. Then, we would need to wait for a phone call between working hours to give them directions how to reach our address. Every day, when the phone call never arrived, we would call BA back, and discover that the information was garbled--that an address in Hungary isn't a local phone number, that it needs an international country code, that we are not at our origin since we left it via airplane so there is no point in calling it. After 3 days, the information was allegedly straightened out. From that point, there was no longer a reason for them not to call us. Since there was still no way to contact the airport, we had no choice but to call BA every few hours and plead with them to get the airport to call us. All they did was tell us they sent these pleas via telex, and it was a one-way communication so there was no way to receive a direct response. They could not or would not give us a phone number directly to the people they were sending the telexes to. We sent messages to BA customer service headquarters, since the BA staff in Vienna were not helping. Their customer service never responded, not even with an automated message.

After a week of no clothing, our own deodorant, or toothbrushes, we looked up the address of the airport on the web and tracked down a working phone number for the baggage handlers. They delivered the bag the next day, though with reluctance over the distance and the country border. We never did hear from BA customer service, and we never got a cent for the inconvenience, because we needed receipts for our items in order to get any money.

Just fuck them. I understand that the company was at the mercy of Austria's sadistic concept of customer service, but the organization should still be held responsible for those it hires or contracts. For contrast, I once complained to AA when the TV in my seat wasn't working on an international flight, and I got a $100 voucher (which I never used). No airline is perfect, but there is an expectation on customer service in fixing problems that is lacking with BA.

Re:Incoming

[Man Eating Duck]

Odd. I was always told phone rings on cell phones are phony, just an artifice.

I don't think so; I get a slightly different tone if I call abroad (from Norway), both from cell and landline phones. This also comes into effect if I'm redirected to outsourced customer service when calling a Norwegian support number. Also, a bad connection is affecting the "ringing" signal I hear in my cell, meaning that it's at the very least generated at the tower, if not on the receiving central.

Re:Incoming

[egamma]

To try and put in context. As long as the guy had a genuinely difficult/unhelpful time dealing with BA customer service then he's fine. If that isn't true, for example they responded quickly and repeatedly but he ignored it. He shouted and was rude to them immediately on the phone making it impossible for them to capably serve him etc. In those circumstances they would have valid grounds for libel in the UK because what he is saying isn't true. Though BA would never pursue it because it would simply make it a bigger story.

But the word "horrendous" is not a factual word; it has no legal meaning. BA can say "we helped him 15 times and found his bag in 20 minutes and paid him 100 pounds for his trouble", and those are all factual statements that they could (and should, if true) present for their side of the argument in court of public opinion. But "horrendous" is still an opinion and opinions are not libelous, in the United States. Like I said, in the UK things are different, and he probably can be sued for his statement of opinion--but if he is a US citizen then the US will refuse to extradite him for a free speech violation.

Re:Incoming

[drinkypoo]

I personally know 9 professional musicians who have had musical instruments smashed or seriously damaged by Qantas, and here's another one that happened just a few days ago.

I know one professional international Cellist. His Cello buys a ticket and has a seat...

Re:Incoming

[BrokenHalo]

Indeed this is common practice, but it doesn't help when airlines change the rules when they share planes.

Re:Incoming

[Builder]

Please stop using the wrong hashtags - I think you'll find you should be using #opoo :D

Re:Incoming

[drinkypoo]

Indeed this is common practice, but it doesn't help when airlines change the rules when they share planes.

And this is why travel agents should still be a thing. Some people have management capable of handling these details, though.

Re:Incoming

[cundare]

Au contraire contraire

I am a lawyer and have found Slashdot to be a hellhole for those looking for legal advice. Quantity, yes, but quality cringeworthy. Gaia help anybody who relies on legal advice from Rush Limbaugh, William Shatner, or Slashdot.

Re:Incoming

[mspohr]

I agree completely.
My post was intended to be funny and sarcastic and many people did understand (it was voted +5 funny).
Hope this clarifies.

Re:Incoming

[jrclay]

Lemmings all here. It is always the DEFENDANT who proves the truth in slander/libel/defamation, so the DEFENDANT does not have to pay. Why would the plaintiff want to prove he/she/it was a worthless shit, as the DEFENDANT said? Plaintiff in USA must prove the defamatory statement and hope the DEFENDANT cannot prove it is true. Remember the Miss America who claimed the risque video was not her, until it hit the web? She dismissed her suit and resigned the crown. Truth is always a defense in defamation.

Re:Incoming

[ruir]

I am not american btw, my mobile was stolen in maputo and my notebook in transit between Portugal and Germany.

Re:Incoming

[mgcarley]

I had a problem like this with an airline which I won't name. It took around 40 emails and twice as many phone calls (International), here's what I did:

1. Submit the receipts as per their requests. Call them every day at least once, email them every day at least once to follow up on the call (or reverse that, up to you)
2. When they inevitably don't pay on time, send them an invoice for time and emails (30 minutes per email at whatever your hourly rate is, let's say around $20-30 an hour if you're in the $40-60k/year bracket; plus $1 per minute for international phone calls) with the terms as 7 days and a notification of late fees & interest in the footer (like any company would do if you didn't pay your bills on time)
4. When they inevitably don't pay on time, send an updated invoice with that week's time & calls added on. You'll have the logs in your phone or on your VOIP provider's website or whatever, just do a screen-grab or something.
5. Repeat 3 times
6. Add late-notice fees - nominal, let's say $50 per notice.
7. When they still don't pay on time, send them a final notice that failure to pay within 48 hours will result in the debt being sent to collections.
8. Within 48 hours, send the debt to a collections agency (no-win-no-fee, if possible).

For a $200 ticket and a claim that was, by anyone's standards certainly reasonable considering the circumstances; I was reimbursed the better part of $1,000 by the end of it.

Am I ripping off the system? No, even if it could be perceived that way. Does that make me an asshole? Yeah, probably. Is it *exactly* what they would do if you were in a position to pay for flights *after* taking them and failed to pay your bill [or if they were in another industry where they sold a product on a post-paid basis]? Damn right it is.

The key? A paper trail.

now i will never fly BA

[alen]

because of this one tweet. it opened my mind to how evil this company is burning customers' luggage for the fun of it

thank you thank you thank you

Re:now i will never fly BA

[X0563511]

Avoid United while you're at it. I hear they break guitars.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[alen]

people need to learn how to pack fragile objects
no one is going to take special care for your one package and make the plane late.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

Avoid them because they suck, not because they sometimes break stuff.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[intermodal]

Southwest will take special care AND make sure your plane is on time. I once flew home to Dallas with my wife from Philadelphia with over 50 bottles of Dogfish Head Beer packed carefully amongst our four duffel bags. I advised the counter that there were glass bottles in our bags, and they slapped "fragile" stickers on and every bottle made it safely to Dallas.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[alen]

i haven't flown them for years, but how do they suck? you pay money, you get on plane. you pay to take luggage with you.
sometimes weather happens along with other things and planes get delayed. sometimes luggage is lost. that's why anything expensive you always carry on yourself and never check it in.

and i've always hated the people that bring the huge bags on aircraft taking up all the space. i have no problem with airlines making them check it in

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Jmc23]

I know, how dumb of that guy to only pack his guitar in something specially designed to keep guitars safe. He should have built an iron cage around it, right?

Re:now i will never fly BA

[alen]

like southwest has never been late

what happened years ago doesn't count since airlines are losing money now and looking for ways to cut costs. years ago we had somewhat real food on planes. even on short 3 hour flights. years ago i've flown on planes half full and had a whole row of seats to myself. years ago you could get to the airport 30 minute prior to your flight and make it easily

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

I have been on flights that were overbooked, planes that were broken only to be discovered after we boarded and delays extending past 12 hours. To be extra jerks they of course just made the delay one or two hours at a time so they could avoid compensating us for food or toiletries. Shit happens, but how they handle it is beyond poor customer service.

People bring those bags aboard because airlines seem to love to lose or break stuff. If Fedex can manage 99%+ delivery to the right place at the right time surely the airlines could too.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[alen]

i've had to load 747's full of bags. we threw them on the plane

same here, unless he locked the case to make sure it won't open accidentally it probably opened when they threw it into one of those boxes they use to hold luggage inside the plane

Re:now i will never fly BA

[alen]

same here
planes are complex machines, they break. one time i saw an engine leak oil from my seat. the point is don't expect them to spend $100 for a hotel or whatever if you spent $200 on a flight. that's air travel.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

I have different expectations. When I spend $800 on a flight round trip I do expect a $100 hotel if they fuck up. Not my problem. Air travel is like that because we allow it. Honestly I think that they should start having to refund a percentage of the ticket cost for every half hour they are late, if the problem is within their control like a broken plane.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[intermodal]

I find it difficult to believe that 2008 on WN was so different from today's WN. I've flown them multiple times since, and have had nothing but good luck with their baggage handling. In fact, once my luggage made my flight while the TSA lines kept us to a later flight and a re-route through two unanticipated cities. But we got there with luggage waiting for us, not much later.

WN has always been good to us, even if the frills are few and far between. I don't judge my three-hour hop by whether they brought me a meal. I judge it by whether I got where I was headed in a reasonable amount of time. If that means I pack a sandwich, so be it.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Jmc23]

Perhaps you should stop making suppositions about things where the truth is known?

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous for odvious reasons...

Dont do Business with United Airlines. I used to answer phones for a travel website (that I wont mention, but they're still around.) and recieved a call from a grieving, crying father who was so upset he could barely talk for the first 10 minutes.

This was in 2002, with 9/11 fresh on everyone's minds still. The guys son was on a flight from one end of the country to another, where to where I dont recall anymore but it doesn't matter. He had a heavy middle-eastern accent, and so I can assume his son had it as well. He was in a layover somewhere when the airline his 18 year old son was advised there was a 'complaint' on the plane. His presense on the plane was making someone 'uncomfortable'....

So they kicked him off the flight, and rescheduled him for another flight. It was the last flight of the night, so there was nothing until the next day. He's 18 years old, a thousand miles from home, has no money (not smart but at the same time...) and because he's 18 he cant get a hotel room. The airline would offer him nothing, not even food vouchers. That airline was United Airlines.

I was on the phone for 3 hours before I gave up and refunded the tickets at full cost to the website. NEVER work with United.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[houghi]

that's why anything expensive you always carry on yourself and never check it in.

Sometimes you will not be allowed to take the expensive stuff as carry on. e.g. camera equipment. That goes easily in the thousands of dollars very fast.

What I heard a person do is take a flare gun (unloaded) and put it in the case and then fill out the forms that there is a firearm in the case and you can bet your sweet ass, they are doing almost everything to not loose your case with the firearm.
http://traveltips.usatoday.com/flying-valuables-103754.html

Don't blame me if they shoot you or do even worse when the above happens not to be true.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[tompaulco]

i've had to load 747's full of bags. we threw them on the plane

same here, unless he locked the case to make sure it won't open accidentally it probably opened when they threw it into one of those boxes they use to hold luggage inside the plane

Um, if you lock your bag then you have something to hide according to the TSA and they will break your lock or your case to get in and look.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Molochi]

Or the baggage handler or TSA person opened the lock to see if the hardcase held a model to add to his collection.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[CohibaVancouver]

You're totally wrong, and here's why: I was once [insert anecdote] and [anecdote] happened. I'm [never] [always] doing that again, let me tell you!

Re:now i will never fly BA

[intermodal]

You're absolutely correct...except for context.

The post was in response to "no one is going to take special care for your one package and make the plane late." It only takes one case to disprove such a claim. First, it makes the assertion that no one is going to take care of your luggage properly. That may be broadly the case, but is not universal. Second, it assumes that failure to treat luggage like crap automatically makes a plane late, which is patently false. It doesn't take better than an anecdote to defeat a sweeping generalization.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[ackthpt]

people need to learn how to pack fragile objects
no one is going to take special care for your one package and make the plane late.

I cast my guitar in carbonite whey I fly. Works great for fidgetty kids, too!

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AmiMoJo]

Presumably you are talking about your experience in the US, because that kind of shit would never be allowed in the EU. You have a right to food, accommodation and compensation. I don't know why US consumers put up with being treated that way.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[msauve]

But that's the thing. They were taking special care, deliberately abusing what were obviously fragile musical instruments.

If your guitar, packed in a non-ATA case, gets crushed because turbulence causes some other package to land on it in flight, that's the traveler's problem. If it's broken because an airline employee deliberately throws it to the ground 10 feet below instead of putting it on the conveyor like the other luggage, that's the airline's problem - regardless of what the contract says.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[del_diablo]

You payed for a travel from A to B in reasonable and fast time. If their job to provide the travel. If they don't, why would they be running a company?

Re:now i will never fly BA

[intermodal]

I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sure you also hate buses for not being limousines and fishing boats for not being yachts.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Tom]

If airlines would get 99% of the luggage right, that would mean several pieces of luggage lost every flight.

I'm pretty sure their percentage numbers are quite good, but since passenger numbers are high, especially in the US where you need to fly virtually everywhere, the total numbers add up. Plus a lost piece of luggage is usually more of a problem than a lost Fedex package.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[xaxa]

because he's 18 he cant get a hotel room

Is that in the USA? How old do you have to be?!

There's no legal minimum here (UK), although searching brings up a few websites saying they won't take anyone alone and under 16.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Just Some Guy]

I'm very forgiving when things break. If there's a problem with my plane's engine, by all means, please take all the time you need to repair it!

But I'm not at all forgiving of poor planning, like suddenly realizing that the scheduled pilot has worked too many hours in a row and isn't allowed to fly any more that day. Or maybe noticing that the engine is due for an oil change, and delaying the flight for an hour while that's performed. Both of those are real world examples of the fun I've had with United.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[lgw]

I know I do! You won't catch me on any of the above. But at least I'm rational about it.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Solandri]

"Never" is a strong word. It was allowed in the EU up until 2005. The timeframe of the delay before compensation is required was clarified (3 hours) by courts in Oct 2012 (before then, airlines would say a delay wasn't long enough to require compensation). And the EU clarified the rules regarding when the airlines could claim the delay wasn't their fault (and thus they wouldn't have to pay) just two months ago. So what you're describing is actually a very recent development in the EU.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[mjwx]

People bring those bags aboard because airlines seem to love to lose or break stuff. If Fedex can manage 99%+ delivery to the right place at the right time surely the airlines could too.

The big difference between FedEx and Airlines is that if FedEx tells a package to shut up, sit down and stop fiddling with it's bloody phone it does it.

Airlines are herding 2-500 cats into a cramped cigar tube. People are terrible at following directions.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[tompaulco]

I was surprised to see that you can get guitar cases with TSA approved locks, but the facts are that most people don't buy brand new equipment and then pay extra for locks. I've got some nice instruments and not a one of them is under 10 years old. None of them have new cases, and none of them have TSA approved locks. They do probably have locks that can be jimmied with a screwdriver, like pretty much any guitar case lock in the world.
Basically, the TSA doesn't need to be going through people's baggage. We have all this fancy electronic equipment. It's the 21st century. Surely, technology has progressed beyond the 1970s x-ray scanner, which was already more than adequate at the time.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[fafalone]

I had a 12 hour delay at Gatwick (UK). They gave us a single £2 voucher and nothing else. Had to wait in the terminal. If I had to guess, they would be required to provide accommodation in another hour or two... because after 12 hours they made us board the plane. But then we didn't leave the gate for another 2 hours (and they wouldn't let us back off to sit inside). Total 14 hours. Also British Airways, back in 2000.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AK Marc]

The TSA has always opened my bags. Every time. Never locked, always opened.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AK Marc]

Even problems outside their control are under their control. They just use "tricks" to pawn off their poor planning on the weather or the airport.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[tlhIngan]

Presumably you are talking about your experience in the US, because that kind of shit would never be allowed in the EU. You have a right to food, accommodation and compensation. I don't know why US consumers put up with being treated that way.

Because US customers want price over everything, and such civilities bring the ticket price up. Do that and your airline will suffer as people will jump ship to save $1 off the ticket of an airline that treats the like crap.

Same thing with other things as well - a good part of the reason why stuff in the EU cost more is the embedded duties and VAT added to the product price. But a portion also goes towards the "extended warranty" that the EU mandates as mandatory. So in the US, when the salesdroid says "Do you want an extended warranty with that?" well, you can have your 2 year warranty a la the EU by answering yes.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[FireFury03]

Presumably you are talking about your experience in the US, because that kind of shit would never be allowed in the EU. You have a right to food, accommodation and compensation. I don't know why US consumers put up with being treated that way.

Whether its allowed or not is irrelevant. 2 years ago I was flying with Thompson Airlines on a Crystal holiday (Thompson and Crystal are the same company, but they operate under different brands). For the return trip, in order to save themselves some money they had decided to use a single transfer for a number of widely spaced flights - that meant we were taken to Chambery airport 4 hours before we were due to depart - that's long before the checkin desks are even open, so we couldn't even check in our luggage. Then, severe weather lead to the closure of the airport for some time.

EC directive 261/2004 requires that air carriers provide free food and meals after only a 2 hour delay, so about 2 hours after our expected departure time, they announced that the plane was landing, that there would be a rapid turn-around and waved us through to the departure area. Of course once we went through security, it rapidly became clear that the Crystal reps had lied to us and the plane was, in fact, not there. However, there were no Crystal or Thompson reps in the departure area and when airport staff phoned them they were informed that the reps were "too busy" to come and speak to us. Eventually, 3 hours later, we actually got to see a rep, because one of the other passengers got pissed off and ran back through security.

We asked for the food and drink that we should have received, and the rep told us “Thomson is aware that we have a legal obligation to provide food and drink but we are choosing not to do so”. Eventually they did agree to provide drinks but refused to provide any food. We eventually took off 11 hours after we were supposed to, having sat on the cold floor of the airport for 10 hours (because Chambery is small and there weren't enough seats). The air crew had been informed that we had all received food and drink on the ground and therefore didn't require any during the flight, so most of the passengers had to go without food until we landed at Bristol.

Upon returning to the UK, Crystal disclaimed all responsibility, stating that we had to complain directly to Thompson (even though they are the same damned company). Both Thompson and Crystal refused to apologise or compensate us, essentially claiming they had done nothing wrong. This was despite them knowing that we were a large group who booked a group holiday every year. ABTA, IATA and the CAA all refused to do anything about their flagrant disregard for the law.

So yeah, it may "not be allowed", but it still happens - the airlines ignore the law and the regulators don't punish them for it. Needless to say, Crystal/Thompson will be losing out on over ten thousand pounds of business every year, since our group will never book with them again - all because they decided to save a couple of hundred pounds by refusing to meet their legal obligations and offering utterly shite customer service both at the time of the incident and in the months afterwards.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AmiMoJo]

Seems unlikely that the regulators would refuse to do anything considering how they keep forcing companies to pay up. Your best bet is Small Claims Court.

In fact this week there was a story Call You and Yours (BBC Radio 4) about a guy who had similar problems with the same airline and eventually was award compensation even though he didn't claim for about six years.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[drinkypoo]

But I'm not at all forgiving of poor planning, like suddenly realizing that the scheduled pilot has worked too many hours in a row and isn't allowed to fly any more that day. Or maybe noticing that the engine is due for an oil change, and delaying the flight for an hour while that's performed. Both of those are real world examples of the fun I've had with United.

Business intelligence is apparently hard. Napa can't even manage to know that the truck from Sacramento won't come to Lakeport until Wednesday, and so tells me I'm going to get a part on Tuesday. The truck only goes to four fucking places.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

Because they know what the failure rate is and can simply plan for it.

There is no reason why airports cannot have a spare plane or several airlines could not share one. There is no reason why alternate parts are not kept at airports. Actually there is, cost. Greyhound would be ashamed if it ran its business this way.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Just Some Guy]

That would drive me to drink. You have this truck, right? And you know when it's leaving and where it's going, right? Can you give me an answer based on that which conforms to actual reality?

Re:now i will never fly BA

[SvnLyrBrto]

I suspect that not being able to get a hotel room was more due to the "has no money" part. I think I was 16 the first time I ever booked a hotel room here in the US. This *was* long before 9/11 though. So I guess it is possible that there's some rule that's changed. But rules or no rules, "has no money" is going to be a major stumbling block.

Also, yes... United is just awful.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

Which differs from what greyhound does how?

Only in scale. There should be a crew ready to repair planes 24x7 at least on call if nothing else. If I can have all my sysadmins in our datacenter in 30 minutes, the mechanics can do the same thing. Same with whoever signs off on the repair.

Lots of things are expensive and we keep spares. Redundancy is the only real solution here. You would of course rotate planes from spare to active duty and such. This way the cost could also be shared amongst many carriers. Same as gensets used for data centers.

The simple fact is until airlines have to pay for lateness they will do nothing about it. They need a financial incentive. My proposal would be 10% of the ticket price per hour late, max payout 2X the ticket price. That kind of incentive would lead to solutions.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

Which seems to be about right based on my limited dataset. Do you really think they don't lose at least a couple pieces per flight?

Re:now i will never fly BA

[h4rr4r]

I could compare them to plumbers, would that make you happy?

Repair folks period have to be readily available.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[Tom]

No, I don't. Both by my own experience and observation, at least here in Europe, luggage does get lost, but not on a routine basis.

But why guess when you have facts?

The most recent available report is from last year:
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/2012/September/2012SeptATCR.PDF

The average is 3.52 reports per 1,000 passengers, or 0.352%

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AK Marc]

You are more likely to go from rags to riches in almost any other country, but we pass laws benefiting the 1% because we are deluded. I'm planning on toiling away in the top 10% for my entire life, but have roughly a 0% chance of reaching the top 1%. Maybe if I invest well, my children will have a non-zero chance of being a 1%er, but it's still unlikely.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AK Marc]

The vast majority of the time the problem is with a sensor. But it's illegal to fly with a broken sensor (for most sensors, and regular definition of "illegal" - sad I need to include so many disclaimers), so I've been held up for hours to switch a sensor, then another few hours when they switched planes. At least it was a fuel sensor, so they had to kick us off the plane to fix it, so we weren't sitting at the gate for hours with the foul air that smells of oil and chemicals.

Re:now i will never fly BA

[AK Marc]

I traveled with my sister when she was over 18 and I was under. She could check in, and I couldn't. They can't hold someone under 18 to the terms and conditions (not being a valid contract with a minor), so it was impossible to find a place that would serve me, but she was OK. Maybe there are chain rules on age to keep damage down, like car rentals only being 25+ for most major chains, or 21+ for a few smaller ones. I've driven rentals "illegally" at under-18, and just-over 18, every time with the legal renter in the car with me (visiting relatives who didn't know their way around, and D.C. where my mother and sister were intimidated by the traffic).

4 hours to respond

[schneidafunk]

Think about this, BA did not respond to this paid & highly public tweet until 4 hours later. If they are that bad at dealing with publicity, I imagine their customer service on a daily (semi-private) basis must be 10 times worse.

Re:4 hours to respond

[MickyTheIdiot]

Poorly paid public facing people make the problem orders of magnitude worse.

Re:4 hours to respond

[firex726]

I assume for something so odd and unexpected it took them a bit to properly prepare their response.

Marketing guy would have to take it to his Mgmt and him to his, etc... then it'd have to debate on how to respond then it' have to be passed back down the chain and done. Last thing you want is for it to go south and you be THAT GUY that messed it up. Name of the game is covering your ass, especially on high publicized portional PR nightmares.

Re:4 hours to respond

[alen]

he tweeted it 7:57pm. in england its the middle of the night
in the US people are relaxing with families

this will really turn me off from flying BA because they didn't respond to a tweet at night

Re:4 hours to respond

[h4rr4r]

For the same reason they have people answering the phones. Having the conversation in public is much better for everyone who is not the big company.

Lost luggage happens, some airlines do a better job finding it or compensating. The fact that the person who lost it was not a direct employee of BA does not matter. BA was handed the bags and is responsible for them until they are handed back to their owner.

Re:4 hours to respond

[alen]

the tweet was in NYC. english time is a few hours of ahead because the earth is curved and we have these things called time zones

Re:4 hours to respond

[KPU]

I heard that airlines operate in multiple time zones.

Re:4 hours to respond

[Charliemopps]

I work for a company that has "social media" outlets... and at one point I was put in charge of it. Let's be clear, social media fucking sucks. You can have a Facebook page, you can tweet, you can post every 20min and no-one will pay any attention unless you have some kind of contest, at which point every script kiddy in the country is going to write a bot and undermine the event.

When it comes to responding to messages its not quite as bad, but really what can you do? In most cases people post something at 10pm when they've been fuming for hours and are now drunk off their ass. If you respond to their tweet they often just go off on a drunken rampage, if you call them they're usually upset that you're "stalking them online" it's a lose/lose situation. There's literally nothing you can do about a situation like this. BA is in trouble preciecely BECAUSE they have a twitter presence. They could have simply not had an account and responded "Sorry we do not have a twitter presence, we'll have someone call this gentleman on the phone asap." Who could fault them? They're not on Twitter.

I eventually told my management I didn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. I personally think there is basically no value in social media for a business at all other than reading market trends. I've been pushing for us to simply shut down our twitter and Facebook accounts and completely ignore the medium all together. Yes, there will be the occasional person that complains online but there's little we can do about that. You have our number, if the person you talk to doesn't help you ask for a supervisor. MY company will resolve your issue if you do that. BA may not, and if not they have a bigger problem than their response times to twitter. In my opinion they need to work on their customer service business processes before they bother with social media.

Re:4 hours to respond

[tompaulco]

BA did not respond to this paid & highly public tweet until 4 hours later. If they are that bad at dealing with publicity, In an interview, one of the BA reps in charge of monitoring twitter had this to say: "They've got four more reps working on the case. They got us working in shifts!"

Re:4 hours to respond

[Zero__Kelvin]

Well, how long do you think it should take to contact the corporate lawyers and have them decide if they should respond and what they should say?

Re:4 hours to respond

[interkin3tic]

That's kind of a silly assumption. If BA responded to it promptly, I'd question why they were bothering with twitter in the first place. (I may be a bit biased: I don't think twitter is useful for anything aside from shitty news stories.) Furthermore, if BA set a precedent for responding to angry tweets promptly, they might have to pay more people more money to respond to twitter. I'm sure however they currently handle complaints isn't exactly set up to respond to twitter.

The size limitations on twitter seem like it's a waste of time from customer service. What can you tweet back besides "@angryman: Well fuck you too #noflylisted"

Re:4 hours to respond

[Flere Imsaho]

...because the earth is curved

Citation required

Re:4 hours to respond

[boarder8925]

Did you get that time by looking at the tweet yourself? Because Twitter shows tweet times according to the time zone you're viewing a tweet from. So if I in North Carolina send something out at 8:39pm and you read it in Houston, Texas, Twitter will tell you I posted it at 7:39pm.

Nice that customers have some power

[Kazoo the Clown]

But I wouldn't expect them to keep this power. Just like retail stores rid themselves of picketers by building shopping malls (you can't picket on private property, so pickets can only be at the street entrance to the mall property which severely hampers their effect on individual stores). No doubt they'll figure some way to take the wind out of these sails. Freedom of speech only belongs to those with money...

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[Russ1642]

I have never even heard of people picketing a store. Does this happen?

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[the eric conspiracy]

I've seen it at strip malls. And WalMart.

The thing is though it's really no different from regular malls. The picketers have to stay off private property which means the they need to be pretty far away from the store if it has a good sized parking lot.

It really has nothing to do with whether or not the store is in a mall, and everything about how much parking there is between the store and the street.

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[MightyYar]

I'm less than outraged? Why should you be allowed to trespass?

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[neminem]

Right, those with money. This *was* a person with money, which he used to buy promoted tweets. Did you even read the title? :p

Re: Nice that customers have some power

[Kazoo the Clown]

Stores have been known to be picketed, but you don't see it much anymore. Picketing a store with it's own parking lot is a lot more effective though, than picketing a store with a huge shared parking lot-- I've seen it happen, people picketing at an entrance to a mall parking lot, but there are usually many entrances, and it's tough to cover them all with a small crew, and the problem being, a mall may have hundreds of stores, you don't know who's crossing the picket line and who's not. Customers may just be going to one of the stores not being picketed.

Now however, storefronts are taking a back-seat entirely for many people-- you definately can't effectively picket a store whose access is via the internet. Opportunities for people who have been wronged by stores to communicate with other customers are generally under attack, if they can find a way to prohibit tweeted complaints being elevated to premium positions, rest assured they will.

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[danbert8]

We have unions out protesting in front of various businesses because they used non-union labor for things. Of course I don't think they have actual union people out protesting. They probably hire out non-union people for that...

Re: Nice that customers have some power

[Kazoo the Clown]

Unions are not the only picketers. Sure it was common for unions to picket, but private citizens or individual employees have been known to as well. Not much point though if you are one person with an issue at one store, even an independent one, that's in a space in a 250-store mall with a huge paking lot.

Re:Nice that customers have some power

[Lemming Mark]

Yes, I tend to agree - in fact, that's basically one of the first things I thought, on seeing this article. It's easy to imagine that relatively few incidents like this will be required for Twitter to change its T&Cs so that individual customers can't buy ads like this (assuming it doesn't technically violate them already). This guy might have had enough money to get one ad griping about them but he's not as valuable a customer as the large companies who'll buy many ads and have an interest in not being criticised.

Re: Nice that customers have some power

[Velex]

I don't think the ability to communicate to other customers or the general public is "under attack" per se, but the way that wronged customers can effectively vent their frustration is changing.

Before, if you were wronged, nobody could possibly know about it until some critical mass of others were wronged to where it could go through the grapevine and materialize as a picket. The picket was one way the way wronged individuals could communicate to the public at large what had happened to them and that the problem might just be more systemic than a few malcontents and unfortunate circumstances.

Other relevant traditional methods going by the wayside include investigative journalism.

Both of those things---picketing and investigative journalism---are being replaced by reputation websites such as Yelp and Angie's List and even /. right here. Now, Yelp and Angie's List use very different models, and certainly Slashdot is a completely different galaxy. There's probably plenty of room for innovation.

The bottom line, though, is that the idea of reputation is not going away. The way reputation is communicated and learned about is changing, though. There's Yelp and its shady reputation its gained itself. There's Angie's List, a service that people are willing to pay for. And, well, there's Slashdot. The comments section says it all, especially when certain notorious businesses come up such as Paypal.

So, I guess, shady businesses can hide behind parking lots and in malls, but the internet is the thing from which they truly cannot hide.

Alternate link

[denis-The-menace]

http://simpliflying.com/2013/promoted-tweet-against-british-airways-airline-customer-service/

All PR is good PR

[RJFerret]

They might lose luggage more if it results in others paying to promote their brand name! Folks down the road won't remember why BA is in the forefront of their subconscious when they go to purchase tickets... Smart of Jet Blue to try to get in on the attention too.

This is one of the big problems with trying to warn folks off bad service, you really need to promote every company save the one you aren't a fan of or it just ends up good for them in the long run.

Re:All PR is good PR

[Anonymous Psychopath]

They might lose luggage more if it results in others paying to promote their brand name! Folks down the road won't remember why BA is in the forefront of their subconscious when they go to purchase tickets... Smart of Jet Blue to try to get in on the attention too.

This is one of the big problems with trying to warn folks off bad service, you really need to promote every company save the one you aren't a fan of or it just ends up good for them in the long run.

All PR is good PR is only something said when there's bad press by people who want to keep their jobs. And it isn't true. If it were everyone on /. would love Microsoft.

Re:All PR is good PR

[nospam007]

"They might lose luggage more if it results in others paying to promote their brand name! "

Just send your luggage with UPS or Federal Express to the Hotel and back if you must use an extra one besides the one you carry. I use a sturdy metal one (I don't have to carry it, so...)
The first time I saw that it was some Boy scouts who sent all their gear that way because they'd had been bitten several times.

I'm sure they lose them too sometimes, but they have better insurance and they bring it home and you don't have to pull it for miles in, to and from airports.

Re:alen whoever abducted you...

[sjames]

That's not an anal probe, it's some corporate PR wonk's arm.

Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[ciderbrew]

It is fucking downright dogshit in the mouth awful. Ryanair lost my business forever and ever. Ryanair 's customer service is horrendous + extra charges.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[realityimpaired]

Ryanair is fine if you don't bring any luggage beyond your purse/carry-on. Though I wouldn't expect a 5-star inflight meal.

I know people who travel with no luggage at all... just go to a consignment on arrival to buy some outfits, and donate to a charity before leaving. Works remarkably well for them, and not actually much more expensive than paying overage fees. Also, if they're flying domestically, they get a tax writeoff for the donation (though that bit works better in big countries like Canada or the US... where Ryanair doesn't fly. ;))

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[neminem]

I would never fly Ryanair, because my understanding is that if there's ever any problem, even if it's entirely their fault, their first and only reaction is going to be flipping you the bird, and I don't want to rist that.

However, while flying Southwest, even though it offers you a whopping 2 free checked bags, I very rarely take advantage of it, because it's just so much *simpler* packing everything into a backpack and stowing it under your seat. You're never worried that your things will get lost, redirected incorrectly or damaged, and as an added bonus, you don't even have to wait in the baggage claim zoo for your bag to appear. You can just walk right off the plane and out of the airport.

I don't see any reason to travel with *no* luggage, though... are there airlines that charge you for even a single under-the-seat bag?

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[realityimpaired]

are there airlines that charge you for even a single under-the-seat bag?

Probably some of the super-ultra-mega discount ones, but I have never flown such an airline. (cheapest/lowest end I've ever personally flown was Air Canada/Jazz... for trips to Europe, I usually take Air France or British Airways depending on where I'm flying to/from, though I've flown Lufthansa, too. My aunt is the one who regularly took Ryanair when she was in Europe).

Having a change of clothes stuffed in your laptop bag or a backpack isn't a bad idea... the point was mostly about not bringing a suitcase. :)

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[neminem]

And my point is, I stuff my laptop in my backpack, and then stuff *all* my clothes in there with it, and that's all my luggage, unless I'm gonna be gone more than like a week, and I'm going somewhere where there won't be any way to wash clothes.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[betterprimate]

I flew Ryanair once, the lavatory was out of service. 'nuff said.

Ryanair is like a chinatown bus with wings.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[Dixie_Flatline]

The thing to understand about Ryanair is that it's less an airline and more of a bus with wings. They don't care about you in the same way that the bus service in your city doesn't care about you. They'd like to cram as many people on as can pay the fare, get you to your destination on-time-ish and hustle you off.

It's not a bad system, but luggage and stuff works exactly as badly as it usually does on the bus. The costs for a bag for an airline are way higher, though, so you can't expect sympathy.

If you expect nothing out of Ryanair except a cheap ticket and just enough seating so that you can pass the time only moderately uncomfortable--just like a bus or a subway--you'll be fine.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[will_die]

The best explanation I have seen is that Ryanair is an experiment to see what people will do for cheap plane tickets.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

If you want to fly cheap don't expect a red carpet. I've flown Ryanair many times and have never had a problem, mainly because I keep well within their regulations, which I do because I like flying cheap.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[Art Challenor]

With Ryanair if you actually READ the T&C you can get a ticket at a decent price. They lay out all the items you could want and the cost for each of these. Bags (15kg or 20kg) price per extra kg (yes, that starts at 16 and 21). Didn't print out your boarding pass, they have a price (70Eur?) to do that for you. Baggage tag? Food on the flight, there's a cost for that. For everything other than the use of the seat (and the toilets, so far) there is an additional cost, and they list it - RTFM and don't complain because they are charging for something for which they CLEARLY stated they would charge you. The seat and the flight are usually OK.

If you're not going to read the T&C your going to get screwed. Same applies to Facebook (much more duplicitous, much more obnoxious), your ISP, mobile phone provider, etc. etc.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[xaxa]

I would never fly Ryanair, because my understanding is that if there's ever any problem, even if it's entirely their fault, their first and only reaction is going to be flipping you the bird, and I don't want to rist that.

That's what they'd like to do, and they will indeed do little more than the minimum they're legally required to do (so if you didn't book a round trip, but only a flight home, they may well just refund you in full and you'll have to buy an expensive ticket at short notice -- probably with Ryanair). However, they are one of (if not the) most reliable airlines in Europe, mostly because they fly to tiny airports that no other flights use. There's much less chance for something to go wrong.

The experience on the plane has become worse every year I've used it -- it's worse than a suburban train, they play several advertising jingles on a flight now -- but when I go to eastern Europe having a relaxing journey to/in a tiny airport, and landing exactly on time in England, for less money, can be preferable to the inevitable delay of Heathrow.

Some airlines now charge for a "large" cabin bag, e.g. http://wizzair.com/en-GB/useful_information/service_fees -- but I don't think this is unreasonable, since far too many people were taking maximum-sized bags. It really slows down boarding when there's no room for all the cabin luggage.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[neminem]

If I needed a suit, yes, I would have to bring it with me, and that would justify having more rigid, suitcase-like luggage to put it in. I don't tend to need a suit, though. If I'm traveling, it's probably either to visit family, or for vacation. (I've been to a few weddings... never had to wear a suit...) Shoes, yes, I will indeed totally put them in my backpack.

And why would I take food with me? Booze, depending on the situation, sure, though if I do plan on bringing booze somewhere, if possible, I drive it there. Better to buy it there, though, if possible. (Though yes, when we go on a cruise to Europe next year, we are probably going to look into how to get wine back home. I'm resigned to stowing luggage anyway, though, given that I *will* be a couple weeks on vacation without easy access to non-price-gouging laundry.)

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[ciderbrew]

You can read all the T&Cs you like. The problem was not having a flight home and having to shell out 5 times the price to get a ticket from another airline. They were happy to refund my ticket mind you. That helped get a coffee. I save more if I pay more upfront with another airline.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[jimicus]

The trick with Ryanair is you don't give them an opportunity to have a problem.

Which means:

  - You make damn sure you check in online and have access to a reliable printer to print the boarding pass.
  - You never check in luggage. If necessary, you purchase a cabin-bag sized suitcase (there's lots on the market and they're made to fit carry on allowance size down to the centimetre).
  - You schedule your time so as to arrive at the airport well in advance (something you pretty much have to do with ever increasing security paranoia anyway).
  - You check before you board whether or not you're allowed a separate bag for duty free purchases (depends on the airport for some weird reason).
  - You never, under any circumstances, attempt to board the plane with anything that isn't in your bag or in a pocket. Newspaper under one arm? Nope.
  - You check ID requirements before you leave. Many airlines are imposing policies regarding what ID they require before they board you that have nothing to do with passport requirements at your destination.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[drinkypoo]

If you expect nothing out of Ryanair except a cheap ticket and just enough seating so that you can pass the time only moderately uncomfortable--just like a bus or a subway--you'll be fine.

That would be fine if you could get on and off the plane just like a bus or a subway.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[Art Challenor]

This is true of any airline and I don't really understand it. Overbook a flight and you have to give away flight coupons to get people to give up their seats or pay stiff penalties. Cancel a flight and you can stiff all the passengers without any compensation. Last flight out of Denver was cancelled for me on a Friday night (after a delay, etc. etc. so it was really late) - staffing problem not weather, etc. Rebooked me on a flight ON MONDAY. Finally got a flight midday on Saturday, but had to sit around in the airport and see if there were seats on each flight. Am I supposed to feel honoured that the airline paid for a night in a hotel and $20 of meal vouchers?

I now consider it an achievement if I get to my destination on the day (forget the time) I'm supposed to get there. Which airline I'm flying makes very little difference.

On the whole, I find that Ryanair get me there on the right day (and often close to the right time) more often than other airlines. That said, I haven't flown them all that much recently because there are other low-cost airlines that fly from closer airports. Once you include the cost and hassle of getting to an airport that's 100km out of town and you add up all the little extras Ryanair throws in, they're not as competitive as they once were.

Re:Ryanair dreams of just being horrendous.

[ciderbrew]

Ryanair are entertaining
Ages ago when I did use them, I was sat at the back of a Ryanair flight. The plane (98% full of people) was readying to take off and 4 flight attendants performed their head count. Each came up with a different number. They each did it 3 times over. Each getting different numbers every time. I was going to suggest just counting empty seats; but that would confused I'm sure.
In the end, a huge classic East German looking lady barreled on, counted everyone up and told the flight attendants off. It was a terrifying flight home as I wondered if the pilots were also that thick.

Re:Twitter will fix this in their terms of service

[ciderbrew]

I'd expect a few tweets to twitter about fucking the fuck off and their premium advertisers with them.

Re:Twitter will fix this in their terms of service

[ggraham412]

Yeah, and once it is in the TOS I wonder if using Twitter like this will become a criminal offense under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, "having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization or exceeding authorized access" ?

Brilliant. That way BA wouldn't even have to pay for their own lawyers' time in a libel suit. Instead it would all be US prosecutors on the US taxpayer's dime.

Re:Slashdotted

[greg1104]

The link goes to technologyadvice.com; I have some for them.

You would think they'd have this down by now

[djbckr]

Airlines have been handling luggage for a very long time, you would think they would have this figured out by now.

Anecdote: I flew Delta quite a bit some years ago and lived about 2 hours/90 miles away from the airport. They would routinely misplace my luggage (never lost it, thankfully) and they had to have somebody drive my bag to my house when they found it. This happened a dozen times. It must have cost them about the price of my ticket for each delivery.

I can only assume that it was because of the luggage missing connecting flights, but most of the time I had at least an hour layover. It just seems like they could make this work

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[sunderland56]

Airlines have been handling luggage for a very long time, you would think they would have this figured out by now.

UPS and FedEx have been handling packages for a shorter time, handle a very much larger quantity of packages a day, but almost *never* lose a package.

Maybe the airlines need to just copy what the shipping companies do?

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[lazlo]

Either that, or customers should wise up and overnight their luggage to their destination via FedEx. You know, I started writing that sentence aiming for "funny", but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. As the airlines charge more and more for checked bags, the differential cost to have your luggage reliably arrive, and in a probably-less-molested state, will eventually be well worth it.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[betterprimate]

I use to be a frequent flyer with NWA before the acquisition.

With NWA, I had saved up enough miles for a round-trip ticket to anywhere I wanted (about a $1400 value) and was planning a summer getaway. When Delta purchased them, they converted my miles over to their program. That $1400 value from NWA instantly became $75.

It comes to no surprise that I will not fly Delta.

I miss NWA. They had the most helpful and friendly staff; simple attentiveness goes a long ways when you're about to be manhandled by TSA.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[PRMan]

If you think your luggage is safe at most lodging without you being there, you are crazy. I knew somebody that did this and the box was opened, all the luggage had been gone through and all the expensive stuff taken. Then the box was retaped badly. The hotel "got it that way" don't you know.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'now, I forgot about this until I just read your post: some years ago I had luggage, including a car seat, delayed arriving at Buffalo. The airline (American?) somehow had a car seat to loan us, plus had our luggage (including our own car seat) delivered to us in Toronto (about 3 hrs drive, including a border crossing) a day later. The delivery van picked up the loaner car seat. For all I know they caught the luggage at the transit point where it got separated from us (O'Hare, say no more) and flew it to Toronto. Legally I guess it was up to us to declare "goods to follow" when we crossed the border. Can't remember whether we did or not.

Let's bear in mind that the *likelihood* of losing luggage is probably 50% in the airport's domain; of course the customer service aspect of dealing with it is 100% the airline's.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[Tom]

No system is perfect, and for systems like these, there is a business-optimal point where the cost of increasing the reliability further is higher than the cost of losing or misplacing some luggage.

That's the real reason behind regulations like the 200 âÂthey have to pay airline customers in the EU for delays of over 2 hours. It's not about giving the customer money, it's about giving the airlines an incentive to be on time.

And it works. I had two flights this year that were massively delayed, but arrived at just under the 2 hour mark. One was 1:53 delayed, not kidding. (Condor, btw., worst airline I've ever flown, won't fly it again)

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[interkin3tic]

Airlines are close to Hollywood in terms of their ability to squeeze every last half-penny out of the transaction. I'd bet good money they calculated that fixing the problem would cost them more than they'd make. It might be based on really stupid things, like assuming you wouldn't change airlines because of misplaced bags (though... it sounds like you didn't for at least a dozen times.) It might be due to really annoying reasons like TSA won't let them move bags faster, or unions prevent them from eliminating unnecessary baggage handlers or something.

Short-sighted greed, dumb regulations, and customers/voters who put up with it are what I think cause most airport annoyances, not failing to consider solutions.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[Rinikusu]

It doesn't scale. An operation like FedEx processes close to 10 million packages a day and can organize their offload/sort/onload schedule around very tight windows. For Night Sort, at least, the vast majority of the cargo arrives within a couple hours, is processed by a small army of handlers, sorters, equipment operators and turned around between the hours of 10PM and 3AM. Airlines don't operate completely within a 5 hour timeframe, but are generally more continously operated between a 12 or 18 hour window, depending upon the site. Not only that, but they have a fraction of the cargo (luggage) that FedEx deals with and so can't spread the cost effectively out over millions of packages the way FedEx does. And even then, try schlepping your 90 Pound overloaded Samsonite down to FedEx and see what it'll cost you to ship it overnight to your location. Plenty of people still do it, btw, but it's not a cheap option (You get what you pay for). From the few job listings I saw for a few regional airlines, it seemed that the guy loading and unloading airplanes also was doing the weight & balance of the airplane, not to mention CLEANING the plane between flights. Airlines are pretty cut throat and the consumers are overwhelmingly walking with their dollars. Oh wait, no they're not. :/

*Disclaimer, I worked at the Memphis Hub for over a decade.

Re:You would think they'd have this down by now

[Anonymous Coward]

UPS and FedEx have been handling packages for a shorter time, handle a very much larger quantity of packages a day, but almost *never* lose a package.

Maybe the airlines need to just copy what the shipping companies do?

How do you think UPS ships a lot of their stuff? I work for a major airline and we even have dedicated receiving areas for companies such as UPS and DHL. Hell, our cargo facility even has it's own mail sorting facility because we get so many USPS shipments.

Relevant quote

[Todd Knarr]

"Remember: every member of your 'target audience' also owns a broadcasting station. These 'targets' can shoot back."
-- Michael Rathbun to advertisers, in n.a.n-a.e

And they found the lost bag...

[Art Challenor]

The "lost" bag was found and is due to be delivered... Does this mean that they didn't start looking for it until the Tweet showed up?

Delta in Venezuela

[Kevin Fishburne]

Here's a good one. Delta at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta allowed me to take my desktop PC as a carry on (confirmed by phone and at airport) to Venezuela. On the way back home I was informed despite significant protest that I was not allowed to carry it on. They began shrouding it in plastic wrap, being kind enough to give it a little extra before it got tossed in with the rest of the luggage. My mouth was an O of horror as you can imagine.

When I picked up my desktop from the luggage belt in Atlanta it sounded like a piñata. I removed the side panel and--I kid you not--the RAM, video card and FUCKING HARD DRIVE were completely unseated. I can't imagine the physics that resulted in the hard drive coming out.

So yeah, airline baggage handling is awesome. Oh, and the computer still worked after reassembly.

Re:Delta in Venezuela

[Kevin Fishburne]

Interesting. You front me the cash and I'll get one of each. We'll work out a payment schedule later. They also need to be powerful enough to support the dev environment for the MMO I'm working on (the client and server VM). Muchas gracias!

Not correct

[Roger W Moore]

In Britain? Absolutely.

No, truth is an effective defence against libel. The difference is that the onus is on the person making the statement to prove that what they wrote is true rather than the person bringing the court case. This can cause problems if you were, for example, commenting that chiropractice pushes bogus treatments because it is hard to prove a negative. Fortunately that case was won and things have improved somewhat since then.

Re:Not correct

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Well, OED says that "libel" is, among other things, "Law. Any published statement damaging to the reputation of a person". There's nothing about veracity in that. It also adds that the definition of "Any false and defamatory statement in conversation or otherwise" is a "popular use".

Re:Not correct

[gmhowell]

Black's Law Dictionary may be more relevant than OED:

Libel: Defamatory statement published through any manner or media. If intended to simply bring contempt, disrespect, hatred, or ridicule to a person or entity it is likely a civil breach of law. However, if it causes mayhem or breach of peace, it can be a criminal breach of law. Yet, again, if the statement is newsworthy, even if defamatory, proof of benefit to the public is required to avoid criminal complaint.

Re:Not correct

[robthebloke]

Case in point: Jeffrey Archer. He sued the news of the world for libel, won, was later found to have lied in court, and was then jailed for perjury.

Re:Not correct

[robthebloke]

In everything else, yes. In the case of libel, if you make a statement about someone, you had better make sure you have proof first. You could argue that it stifles free speech, but on the other hand, it does at least prevent people in the media from saying things like "He's a communist Muslim from Kenya"....

Re:Not correct

[Roger W Moore]

Surely any false and defamatory statement in conversation is slander, not libel. I thought libel required it to be written down? However the truth is an allowed defence, at least according to this which claims it is the "justification" defence.

Re: FedEx'ed luggage

[King_TJ]

Actually, many of the hotels have wised up to this practice, deciding there's a profit opportunity in it for them too.

I work for a place that often helps put on shows or presentations in various parts of the country, so we tend to ship out big "show kits" full of gear, just before flying to the destination. Then the show kit can be picked up at the hotel lobby when it's ready, saving a lot of hassle lugging it through an airport and into a taxi or rental car or what-mot.

Unfortunately, the hotels tend to tack on $75 or so per item "handling" or "storage" charges, just for accepting the delivery signature for the kit and keeping it behind the desk for you.

So no, it's doubtful this practice will save you much money. Everyone wants a cut of the money when you're traveling.

Well I Guess It Worked

[Greyfox]

But I'm pretty sure you could start a fire on the internet without having to pay a company for gasoline. If we're at the point now where a snarky comment in the right forum doesn't explode into 2/3rds of the planet's population judging your business, well, there's something wrong with the internet.

Crowdfunding for promoted tweets?

[Arakageeta]

I can imagine reddit threads where members crowdfund promoted tweets against the most despised companies, such as cable and telco providers.

Re:Crowdfunding for promoted tweets?

[headcase88-2]

And then Comcast buys Twitter.

A new era in not give a shit

[gelfling]

What you fail to understand is we are in a new era of corporate 'customer care' where they literally don't give a shit. They hired some consultants, commissioned a study, talked to their marketing people and determined the the old adage that it costs more to get new customers than it does to retain their existing ones is nonsense. It's cheaper to treat all your customers like shit, tell them all to fuck the fuck off and behind them are sufficient numbers of new people waiting to experience their product and/or service.

They don't give a shit. And they have the math to back it up. Not just airlines - but the traditional companies that offer near-Auschwitz levels of customer satisfaction: cable companies, phone companies, car rental firms, home service companies, dry cleaners, supermarkets, internet providers, internet phone, TV on demand, car dealerships......all of them. If you're a customer today and tomorrow they decide it's cheaper to cut off your service for no reason, mess up your repair or more typically delay it for weeks for no clear reason then that's what they will do.

Lose your luggage? Airlines aren't in the luggage or transport business they're in the fees and fines business. They're in the business of shaving fractions of a penny off the cost of something because what are you going to do? Walk? What are you going to do? Complain? What good will that do?

It's a massive race to the bottom for everyone and the big joke is that there's no bottom at all. They discovered that not being in business makes more money than anything else. Decades from now business schools will be studying the NYNEX strike of 1989 and see it as the gospel of the ages, a holy grail of business. When NYNEX workers went on strike in 1989 the company made MORE money than ever. Management discovered that not paying their workforce and continuing to send out bills while service fell off the cliff had no repercussions, no downside, and more importantly, no one, no state or regulatory agency would ever pressure them to improve once the strike ended so it just continued 'offering' worsening levels of non-service until the company we bought up in the AT&T recreation of the 1990's.

So complain all you like, tweet your anger, shake your fist at a distant and indifferent god. They don't give a fuck.

Customer Service? IT Support!

[DarthVain]

At least you have a choice. I had pretty much the same conversation with IT support at work about UAC and my admin privileges.

Out of nowhere I was forced to enter my network, username, password, etc... for every admin action I took.
First two people I talked to swore up and down it had always been like that, forever.
I was like, it wasn't like this a week ago, a month ago, or ever, do you think I am making things ups?
Finally I got a guy who said that I was on the wrong list, and "fixed" it.
Until it immediately started happening again.
If I was doing a single thing it is annoying. If I am doing repetitive admin privileges type of work, say 40 times, I have to enter 130 pieces of information, not including any typos that might drive me to the edge of violence.
In the end as it turns out Corporate Security made/changed a policy basically saying that UAC had to be on the most severe setting for everyone. Yes you can go in with admin access and change the UAC settings, but they instantly revert when you login again.
Final response was, not our problem, take it up with corporate security, if you know you are doing a lot of repetitive stuff, temporarily change your UAC settings. One hand not knowing what the other is doing really. Don't have much choice but to put up with it, just takes longer and is more frustrating to do certain tasks. However like you, initially they swore up and down that it was always like that forever and that I must be making things up! Never mind it was a security policy change from the week before that they were either clueless about or were trying to downplay....

USA USA USA

[DarthVain]

Hmmmm, I simply assumed that all Slashdot responses were simply in the context of the USA.