British Airways ejected a family when they demanded that their nanny be upgraded to business class…but this isn’t a case of unbridled entitlement. Rather, the family had paid for a business class seat for their nanny and offered a reasonable compromise when they they were told the premium cabin was oversold.
British Airways Throws Off Family When They Persistently Push For Business Class Upgrade For Nanny
The incident took place on BA2578 from London (LHR) to Turin, Italy (TUR). A power couple (two lawyers) was traveling with their two children and nanny to Italy and had purchased five business class tickets.
However at check-in they were informed the business class cabin was oversold and one of their party would be downgraded. The nanny got the short-end of the straw, but the family (apparently not frequent travelers) discovered upon boarding that business class was actually the same seat as economy class except that the middle seats in each row were blocked.
So Charles Banner asked a flight attendant if their nanny, who had a business class ticket, could simply take a middle seat between the two children.
A flight attendant replied:
“You wish.”
Apparently an argument ensured and the barrister was quite lawyer-like in his persistence…so much so that the aircraft, which was taxiing to the runway, turned around and returned to the gate. The family was offloaded.
Banner told the UK Daily Mail he was a perfect gentelman onboard and that BA had misled him:
“If BA had told me that the nanny could not sit with us in business then we would not have travelled and could have got a later flight. But they only told us that when we got to the boarding gate.
“I behaved perfectly but I was challenging the cabin crew because it was the right thing to do. The pettiness and vindictiveness of the staff caused this. I was being very polite about the whole thing
“I indicated to the cabin crew that I had made a complaint about their behaviour to BA. Rather than apologize, the cabin crew then asked the pilot not to fly either the two kids aged four and one, their mother, the nanny or myself, which was a gross over-reaction to our understandable upset.”
But British Airways defended the ejection, stating:
“We do not tolerate disruptive behavior and the safety of our customers and crew is our top priority.”
However reports suggest the Banner’s were compensated for the incident, which does not indicate the Banner family was anything more than persistent.
CONCLUSION
We cover a lot of in-flight controversy on Live and Let’s Fly and while there is often clear blame on one side or the other, this strikes me as the case in which there is enough blame to go around.
Fundamentally, British Airways was not obligated to upgrade the nanny. However, considering the seat was identical and it was British Airways who involuntarily downgraded the nanny in the first place, it seems to me the proposal to let the nanny occupy the middle was seat was a reasonable compromise.
The attorney (either the mother or father) would have been smarter to swap seats with the nanny and score a handsome heap of compensation afterwards–particularly when the crew proved rude and obstinate–but part of me certainly understands their incredulity that a very reasonable request was not honored.
In the end, this incident does not reflect well on either party, but I hope British Airways learns from this by either overbooking less or taking a reasonable step to accommodate displaced parties, including allowing a middle seat in front of the curtain to be occupied.
Do you think British Airways was justified in throwing offing the power couple and their family?
(image: British Airways // H/T: Paddle Your Own Kanoo)
Because they are lawyers and have a nanny, does that make them a “power couple”? Anyway, there are always two sides to every story and in this case, the moral of the story to me goes back to the basics. A company shouldn’t be allowed to sell a product they don’t have. It should be illegal to sell you a seat on an airplane if that seat isn’t actually going to be available. Say they have 12 seats in BA business class but they sell 14 people those seats, it is wrong. If you ordered an iPad pro 15 inch whatever from Apple and they gave you an iPad mini and maybe a refund for the difference because they oversold it, you’d be unhappy. I understand the business argument on this and the fact that in the end we’d all pay more for airline tickets but it still doesn’t make it right.
Perfect. There’s no question of the couple asking or requesting for an upgrade. In the first place, BA can’t downgrade a confirmed ticket holder and that too at the boarding gate ! Most unfair. Lawyer shud get a hefty compensation for this humiliation.
Always fly BA business class. When you have paid for business class you expect that seat you paid for not a Economy seat.
It seems the nanny had business seat but BA oversold the seats… so we are not talking about an upgrade !?
Upgrade in the context of being re-seated from economy to business once onboard, which would constitute an upgrade.
Upgraded to what was paid for. With a hotel in the states, I paid for a certain level accommodation while my friend paid the base rate. I took it up with Marriott and was referred to the regional director. The director informed me that I needed to have complained at the time of check-in — guaranteed best room available for my status and explicitly paying for the room type wasn’t enough to convince them I should get the room, apparently. But, by contacting Marriott afterwards to seek restitution, I had forfeited any claim to compensation. Here, the couple in question responded to the staff immediately upon discovering the nature of the situation. They were offloaded. Exactly when are we to hold companies accountable? Too soon or too late and it’s all the fault of the customer — it being that the company failed to provide what was purchased before hand.
Let’s call a spade a spade. The airline oversold the ticket and rather than own their mistake and accept a very reasonable compromise, they decided that any amount of push back was insubordination. Soon, we’ll have no recourse with companies who write their contacts and agreements to their sole benefit. Even if you want to term it an upgrade back into the class of service selected, there’s still an issue of whether or not the flight would have been accepted by the family under those conditions before hand along with any opportunity cost or interest lost on the money the airline gleefully took up front. In the states, a company cannot charge you for a purchase (generally) until it is shipped. Airlines, apparently, can charge you $10k for a $500 ticket, holding your money for weeks or months before the flight and a while after. If they can’t be bothered to sell only what they have, why should customers pay before boarding? Afterall, with the status quo, it’s all up in the air until then, isn’t it?
I didn’t know that some airlines over-sold business class. I know Air Canada has explicitly stated that they do not do so.
The request to move up the nanny makes 3 people sit in a row of 3, so it’s a net seat downgrade of 2 people but with 1 extra person receiving services and de-boarding priority. I don’t see why the crew made this a big deal.
I thought one of the supposed benefits of the terrible inta-European business class was that they could expand the cabin by just moving the partition back a row. BA chose not to do that also. Bloody Awful.
There are issues with moving the partition around the exit row. It might have meant moving back two or three rows and then not having the necessary catering
I doubt that they’d have been too keen on kicking 2-3 Y pax off the plane in order to avoid a downgrade that would only cost them about £50 in compensation.
BA are the worst customer service airline I have ever travelled with. Their cabin crew are rude, discourteous and generally look a bit of a mess.
I had to use them twice on around the world tickets . Heathrow to Hong Kong and LA to Heathrow. In between Quantas to Auckland via Sydney and Auckland to LA. Quantas were superb.
I have never ever used BA since and never will in the future. I am ashamed they are British flag carrier ,I have had better service off Ryanair .
Guy. They’re British. AKA arseholes. Arrogant, obsinate crazy morons. “Nuff said!
I agree completely
You are 100% correct plus I abhor snooty persons
As personal general policy, we always make it a point to avoid BA and stopovers at Heathrow for any trip, anytime. Period. We will fly other carriers costing more or re-route than deal with
BA or Heathrow. Avoiding Heathrow altogether is a result of one too many times of long waits and misdirections as well as their inflated fees and taxes.
TBH Matthew, I have full sympathy for the couple on the downgrade, but when I heard they wanted the nanny so they could “do another two hours of work” I lost all interest in the validity of their case.
You’re going on holiday with your kids – spend your time with your kids please. They probably see little of their parents as it is.
It’s a very fair point, Peter.
I’m no model parent, but when I travel with my kids, my laptop stays closed.
Same here – I pretty much leave all work stuff behind. The vacation begins when the last working day finishes.
No dear. Pls leave that decision whether they shud do the ‘two hour’ work or not. That’s not only their personal choice but importantly, they have 5 Biz class tickets and they are entitled to their seats. Period.
what is it a whole 4 hour flight? Jesus. Instead their kids got to enjoy the airport for another 4 hours. Kind of ruins the vacation a bit. Mountain out of a mole hill. Id have booted them for holding up MY flight if i was on board.
Four hours’ worth of flying from London would get you to ATH/IST- Turin is barely over two hours away!
I’m siding with the lawyers on this one – seems like BA could have even benefited from the compromise by potentially avoiding the huge compensation for a forced bump of the nanny.
Alternatively – if the only difference between business class and economy is the middle seat being blocked, seems like the family likely would have been content with all five flying economy and with the middle seat between the parents left open… BA could have solved this issue a lot more creatively than just bumping one member of a family of five traveling together.
Pretty much agree with the sentiments here. Petty for sure and robotic (as well rude) response from BA for what was not a big deal. However, pick your fights. So what, on a not even two hour flight in virtually an identical seat it’s hardly worth pressing the issue. Just let it go.
It is a 2 hour flight. I would be unhappy to be downgraded (and I do not consider an involuntary downgrade from paid business class to be a “failure to upgrade”, but I understand what you are saying), but I could live with it over getting bumped to the next flight with family in tow. But I would also expect serious compensation. Isn’t the amount regulated in the EU? I think I got $400 USD for a similar situation a few years back. (I was more upset that that meant I could not use the lounge in MAD and did not get a good free breakfast and shower.)
The compensation isn’t that serious- 75% of the one-way fare paid. The tickets only cost something like £250 return.
This guy was a jerk. Yes, it was disappointing the Nanny could not fly “first-class,” (keeping in mind BA intra-Europe first class is just a row of three seats partitioned so only two people sit there–not much of a first-class). But the point is that the cabin crew does not assign seats. Apparently, this jerk’s idea of a rude cabin class was merely that he did not get his way. Sometimes when you travel, things don’t go right. But you don’t make a scene about it and hold up the flight for 90 minutes. Hope he gets put on a BA “no=fly” list. He is welcome to take Easyjet whenever he wants, so I don’t have to deal with him. And his reason for making a fuss is silly-he wanted to get work done during the short flight. Having to get a hotel and fly another day probably cut into his work a lot more. He is just an entitlement jerk who throws a hissy fit when he does not get his own way. Grow a pair and man-up.
Did you READ the story? They paid for 5 business tickets and were having that stolen from them by the airline. If you pay for a product and don’t get it then that is a form of theft.
No, the victim in this story is not the jerk.
You know who is, though, right?
Pre COVID, I interacted with a number flight crews over small inconsistencies or issues. I found them to be of small minded, petty people, flaunting the little bit of power at their disposal. They became instantly vindictive b/c I had the temerity to, while remaing polite and non threateng, challenge/question them.
As for BA and their “We do not tolerate disruptive behavior and the safety of our customers and crew is our top priority,” That’s nothing more than cowardly, corporate fallback BS.
I’ll take the side of the lawyer, simply based on the “You wish” comment from the flight attendant.
British Airways DOWNGRADED the Nanny from Business Class even tho’ she was given a Business Class ticket by the lawyer. On what possible basis?! “Overbooking”.
Terrible reporting job.
Click bait! “Upgraded” is misleading.
They were forcibly Downgraded from Biz to Econ on one ticket.
They overpaid for 5 crappy Biz seats and were forced to play lifeboat.
If they had accepted the downgrade your clickbait would have read “Elitist Power Couple Forces Nanny to Travel in Economy While They and Their Children Fly In Luxury in Business Class.”
I don’t have a strong opinion on this decision, but I can tell you how horrified we were on a BA Flight for which we paid for Business Class seats which indeed were coach seats with the center seat blocked, which actually made the window and aisle seats tighter because the arm rests are immovable and climbing over the center blocked seat to and from the window seat was inconvenient at best. It was a terrible rip off. Will never fly BA again if any other option is possible.
Intra-Europe business class is just a blocked middle seat on all the EU airlines. (Turkish from IST might be an exception.) On the other hand, they serve a terrific light meal. In contrast to intra-US first class, with a much better seat, and a terrible meal.
But that is also why I would not feel that bad about an involuntary downgrade on intra-EU business to economy, though I would expect good compensation.
All I will say is that British Airways (along with Air Canada) are two of the worst “premium” airlines in existence. The staff if rude and discourteous, and I can absolutely see this happening as a direct result of their lack of focus on customer service.
i’m lucky i’m not flying with BA.. so now i’m discarding BA on my list. who knows it might happen to me on BA one day.. why overbooking allowed just like that.. businesswise, i understand but hiw about being good to flying customers.. it’s more like passenger favoritism. still happening to BA? .. who knows they might serve you non-edible food..
Lost in this reporting is the apparent fact that this debacle delayed the flight 90 minutes. Arguing with the flight crew for more than an hour is reason enough to get bumped from the flight.
The time lost is the obnoxious crew’s fault. Whichever idiot decided to separate one member of a group should be fired.
No, the airline should have it’s operating staff jailed for fraud for selling seats on a plane that they knew did not exist. The parents shouldn’t have to suffer for the airlines fraud, what they should be punished for is going this far to not have to take care of their own child in the first place. Give the kid to someone who will actually love and cherish them rather than some entitled couple who wants a kid for photo ops and tax breaks, and leaves them to a stranger the rest of the time they can’t be bothered to be parents.
Premium seats should never be oversold! It’s bad enough to oversell coach. Also, Europe needs to implement an actual domestic first class/business product. 2 seats that are wider nor 3 with a middle seat blocked. What a joke! And yes, they absolutely should have accommodated the nanny and opened the middle seat. What’s the big deal in doing so, as long as it was with the 2 children in the same row , , same side of the aircraft which it was. Shame on BA.
Judgemental much? Would it been better not to give the kids a vacation at all? These parents did what they could with the time they didn’t have. As for BA and the airline industry, God help the customer who pays through the nose for poor customer service. Rather than put the whole family on another flight ( because then you would have 3 extra seats because the flight was overbooked on two) they downgraded one of the party. And no it was not asking for an upgrade to be restored to whole by the company. They give too much power to the flight attendants and not enough to customer service.
The headline author should be ashamed of themselves. No, They are not a “power couple”. They’re merely passengers who paid for a service they did not get due to a bait and switch at the last moment.
BA is a trash airline for doing this.
They got downgraded despite paying for the business sear. Regardless of the seat quality itself, BA crew should have handled it better. Paying for something and not getting it is grounds for a lawsuit against BA.
And they had just blocked the middle seat. So why not let the nanny sit with the kids? That was her job she agreed to and is getting paid for. She also likely had no issue to be with the kids.
BA is 100% in the wrong like the author.
Moral is avoid BA. Their service is quite bad ans fly a better airline. I’ve flown BA Business 15hrs and it’s quite avg compared to Emirates.
I hope the lawyer sues and wins.
My experience when I was in England is that customer service is not a priority. Everyone seemed a bit disinterested and rude.
Whatever the rights and wrongs in this particular case, the last time I complained to BA their response was defensive, uncompromising, pompous and not even factually accurate, and when I told them that their response was half-baked I was promised a further response, which was then never provided. For this reason, despite being a BA frequent flyer (to say the least), I have made the decision never to complain to BA again. But neither will I ever either recommend or “dis-recommend” BA from now on, or provide any survey feedback. I have become 100% neutral and, so far as I am comcerned, it is up to BA to work out for itself where it stands. The airline may be forced to split up in the next few years anyway, due to EU regulations relating to IAG.