First of all, sorry for the long time in between posts – Gilles has been taken very ill right after Copenhagen and we just came back from a double cruise to recover after a very trying time.
While flying back with American Airlines via London, we had a bad experience at London Heathrow T5 with British Airways. Gilles needs a wheelchair transfer in large airports as he is still recovering and can only walk (shorter distances) with a crutch.
(A) when we arrived from T3 – where a wheelchair was waiting at the airplane – no one was available to help with the wheelchair in T5. So we were asked if we could manage by ourselves if they provided the wheelchair. That was not a big issue for us but I pitied the 7 (!) other people waiting there who had no one to push them
(B) after we went through security, I walked over (pushing the wheelchair) to the “hidden” lounge entrance which is meant as a shortcut to the Concorde room (reserved for people flying First Class on BA). To give the circumstance: it is a door that gives onto a corridor where you turn left to Concorde room but if you go straight, you will get to the Galleries lounge. I politely asked whether they would allow us to go through the corridor instead of going down through the (very busy) terminal and back up to the lounge.
Imagine our surprise that this was bluntly refused – it is a straight line through the corridor and I could see the entrance to the lounge through the window in the door.
No, they made me push the wheelchair to the other end, take the elevator down, push it back to the other side of the terminal, take another elevator up to the lounge.
Side note: we had traveled First Class on American and were continuing Business Class on BA. Furthermore I am Emerald status on both airlines. But even then I would never ask this under normal circumstances since it is normally not permitted and reserved for Concorde room. However being with the wheelchair by ourselves and with not too much time, we just wanted to have a quick cup of coffee and use the restroom.
When we arrived to the lounge, I asked to see the supervisor explaining what had happened and was – once again quite bluntly – answered that the supervisor wouldn’t be able to do anything since “management had made that rule and it had to be followed“.
Now under normal circumstances I am rather a big fan of BA and OneWorld but my advise to anyone with disabilities would clearly be to stay away. I work for a pharmaceutical company (Travel Director) and I will ensure that we avoid BA when patients would need to travel since I would hate for them to be treated so poorly.
PS the (very nice) Flight Attendant on our LHR – BRU flight lodged a complaint asking the department to reach out to me. I received a mail saying they had received it, I got a complaint number and that they would contact me but that “due to high call volumes, I should expect a delay”. This is the same message I got when I called the Gold number and waited for 25 minutes. This happened to me in August, September and now we are January.
No reaction to my complaint so far – 4 days later….
Maybe if you would improve your service levels, dear British Airways, we wouldn’t need to call and your call volumes would reduce.