Anyone would be thrilled with the idea of boarding a flight and travelling abroad with their loved ones. With similar aspirations in mind to enjoy the journey I boarded the BA flight from Chennai to London Heathrow along with my husband. Well, I did have a kind of sinister feeling quite a few days before the journey, because it was the time when there were stringent regulations about the size of baggage and what we could carry as a hand luggage, thanks to the stir created by someone carrying powdered explosives.
Hence, I wanted to check out with the authorities well in advance about the size/weight permitted. We were scheduled to travel on a Saturday morning.Two days earlier I called up the Customer Service Desk to find out the aforesaid details. My call was answered by an executive, who very emphatically gave the following details :A) Hand baggage:-no weight restrictions-a ladies’ purse/handbag allowed along with another hand luggage B) Check-in luggage:-23 kgs per person allowed. To double check this I called up the very next day and spoke to a different person who sang the same song.
Not bad I thought and completed the last bit of packing and ensured that the weight did not exceed the limit. (had to gently reject some items given affectionately by my people). Just before the day of travel, some inner urge made me call up the service desk again to find if I am on the safer side as far as Baggage was concerned. And to my shock and dismay, the executive said that only a single item can be carried as hand baggage. I drew his attention to the reply that I got just 2 days back, and was told curtly that there has been some miscommunication to the team that was working on that particular day, hence the wrong info.
This reply irritated me to a great extent.I thanked God for letting me know about this at least before going to the airport where packing/unpacking would have become difficult. And I re-arranged/removed some items to adjust everything into a single bag.After all the formalities we boarded the flight and everything went on fine until at around 11.00 am, when someone was feeling giddy, and wanted some medical help.
Since the air-crew were not sure of what to do, they decided to transit halt at Kuwait. There were opinions from all sides about what has to be done, and this was decided by the crew members.......This they did at around 1.00 pm. All the passengers were awaiting their lunch (including me) by that time, but we were convinced that lunch would be served only after the plane takes off, and were patiently waiting.
It took a good amount of time to alight the passenger and identify his cargo and dismount that as well. Well, that was understandable.......What was not forgiveable was, even after the flight took off, it took nearly 2-3 hours for them to serve lunch.....(at around 4.00 pm).All were famished by that time. There was no explanation given by the air crew members for this delay, nor did they apologise for the same.
When there is so much of competition in this field, its high time for British Airways to give importance to even such Trifle Things. It is a good amount of 10-12 hours journey, and this should be made comfortable, if not memorable.It might not be an easy task to run an organisation which interacts with millions of people on a daily basis but there lies the challenge.