In February we took a cruise to the Caribbean. It required us to fly from London to Tampa so we could goto Port Canaveral in Florida to get on the boat. We were meeting up with M’s parents. Since we wanted to go to Tampa and not the more popular nearby Orlando international Airport we had limited flight options. The only direct flight from any London airport to Tampa was British Airways out of Gatwick. Anything else would require us to transfer.
Since we moved to London in all of our personal travel to the states we have flown either Virgin Atlantic or Norwegian Airways. This was our first trip as a family on British Airways. I have flow BA before however I can only recall doing so in Business Class. Before we even got on the plane I had a major issue with using BA. There was no way to book a seat ahead of time in regular economy without spending extra money. If you wanted their low-end tickets you would not be able to pick a seat at all. Their standard economy tickets let you pick seats only when you checked in 24 hours ahead of time. As a family with two relatively small kids that’s not good enough. We need the ability to know we are together when we book our tickets. What good is it to be able to select your seats when you may not have been fast enough on the day to get 4 together.
That limitations not only required us to purchase the standard economy tickets. We also had to pay extra per person to pick her seats when I booked the tickets. Both together added several hundred pounds to the ticket price. Virgin Atlantic had no such restriction. If we bought their standard economy ticket I was able to book a seat. The same goes for Norwegian airlines and they are considered a low-cost carrier. This penny/pence pinching is very annoying. All other things being equal I won’t pick British Airways over Virgin, Delta, Norwegian in the future if I can help it. Business practices do matter people.
If that wasn’t enough their entire online check in process had left a lot to be desired. For both legs of the trip we were required to go to the ticket counter to input additional information. This isn’t the first time we as a family have flown internationally. We’ve never had to do this before however when queried we were told that something about our passports required us to see an agent. I just don’t believe that since we’ve done at least three other roundtrips to the states with no issues. In practice the lines weren’t too bad and on the way home they confirmed my TSA Pre was on my ticket so it worked out. It was simply not a seemless experience. The reason I bring it up is the oddity of because of that glitch we were checked into our flight with no boarding passes. I don’t know if that’s a thing for just British Airways or if airlines are now “checking you in” if you don’t even have a boarding pass. Are you really checked in?
What is funny to me is that the actual inflight service was pretty good. M pointed out the good service also. That does not change that before rhe flight even started I went into it with the negative thought in my head because of the extra cost of the seats. I appreciated the good service in the air. All things equal its not enough for me to choose BA again based on my purchase experience. Since I am not a frequent flyer with them it really doesn’t matter to them anyway! As always it does feel a bit theraputic to write about it though.
Photo shown is not the plane we flew on. That is a 747 I flew on going home from London when living in NY and we flew on something less spectacular that that for this trip.
