British Airways Reviews

1.8 Rating 258 Reviews
18 %
of reviewers recommend British Airways
1.8
Based on 258 reviews
Shipping & Delivery
Delivery Methods
Own Driver, Courier
On-time Delivery
Greater than 9%
Customer Service
Communication Channels
Telephone, Live Chat, Email
Queries Resolved In
Over A Week
Customer Service
1.5 out of 5
Avg Email Response Time
29 minutes
Returns & Refunds
Refunds Process
Difficult
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British Airways 1 star review on 9th May 2024
Laurie Carder
British Airways 1 star review on 7th October 2023
Stuart Cooke
British Airways 1 star review on 21st December 2022
Anonymous
British Airways 1 star review on 18th November 2022
T. Santoso
British Airways 1 star review on 18th November 2022
T. Santoso
British Airways 1 star review on 25th July 2022
Jon
British Airways 5 star review on 11th June 2022
Carole Keating
20
Anonymous
Anonymous  // 01/01/2019
Everything possible that could go wrong went wrong. They are the worst airline I have ever used in my life. They cancelled my flight, then sent me on the wrong flight, and further delayes therefore they have any of my allergies, therefore I did not have a meal the entire overnight flight. They then lost my baggage and left me stranded in winter in South africa in the middle of nowhere in a safari park. I had to walk in winter in crocs in the safari and no coat or warm clothes, i got very ill. After the most expensive and wasted holiday of my life, they would not give me any refund or reimbursement for the ridiculous amount of unnecessary stress put on Me, and stated a vary vague email that did not even comment on most of the issues I had, only the flight cancellation. I am so disappointed and dissatisfied, after I thought BA was an accredited and good airline, I now would recommend no-one ever used this airline again, and get as far away from this company as possible
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Posted 5 months ago
A family of three, inclusive of their 10-month of baby, were the last to board on our flight from London to New York, on flight BA 185. They boarded and spent roughly 30 minutes running up and down the aisles, passing the baby around and creating major annoyances. The parents tried to store their child ON THE FLOOR of the flight, and even hit the baby when it started crying, as they were bringing her back up to the chair. After 35 minutes of back and forth with the crew, the crew agreed to let the parents place the 10-month old baby in bassinet, but in a different row from us, for the flight after take off and before landing. Throughout all of this, the wife is sitting looking aimlessly at her screen and not engaging with anyone, while the husband is being critical of everyone, screaming loudly, and acting arrogantly towards the flight staff. As the cabin is being prepared for take off, the husband, who is sitting next to me, turned and in a very alarming and manipulative way said: It is going to be better for you to switch seats. Because I didn’t have a first class or business ticket (due to lack of inventory), I resorted to paying extra money to reserve my seat. Hearing the husband ask me to switch from my aisle seat to the interior middle, and be in between the husband, wife, and 10-month old baby seemed like a joke, and I respectfully told him I’d like to remain in the seat that I was assigned. For the next 3 hours, the couple is loudly talking with each other. They had no concept of talking quietly as to not disturb their fellow passengers, and the stewardesses were not helpful in asking them to settle down. In addition to the loud conversations, the guests had no concept of personal space. The husband elbowed me countless times, slept on me, put his clothing on me, and even used the area under the seat in front of ME to put his feet. At a point during the flight, the baby woke up and began screaming. The wife was fixated on the map in her entertainment console and outwardly ignored the screaming baby while the husband was in the bathroom. Multiple passengers began looking around, trying to locate the parents to come sooth their child who is now screaming, as a few minutes had passed, when the father jumped out of the bathroom and began soothing the child again. The wife remained unbothered and once the child was finally calm, the father begins having a conversation with his wife over me and the man sitting infront of me, yelling at her for something. She passed him a pillow and he went to go and sleep ON the emergency exit lever. A flight attendant walked past, looked at him, and kept going despite the serious risk this could pose not only to him, but to everyone on the plane. Suddenly, the flight encountered turbulence which promoted the child to begin screaming. Again. The wife begins screaming over us to the husband to wake him up and get him to tend to the baby. He doesn’t answer her and the baby miraculously falls back asleep before our flight attendant returned and ask the couple to take the child off the bassinet due to turbulence. I get up to use the bathroom and find that the husband is sitting in my seat, trying to once again place the baby on the floor. Once the baby began crying, they brought her back up again to their lap. Throughout the flight, I had to stand up for the couple over 35 times. I was not able to sleep at all due to the constant screaming, crying, loud talking, and constant movement to appease the child and the parents. At one point, the flight attendant had to literally hand the baby over to the parents, over me and the man in front of me, because the couple refused to get up. In addition to this, there were two other small children in front of me, and one behind me. I was surrounded by very young children who spent the entire flight screaming and bothering those around them. There was a 15-minute period where the two kids in front of me were standing up, facing me and yelling, while changing the content of my TV screen multiple times. The young child behind me at one point didn’t know how to open the bathroom door and began screaming bloody murder. I fly for work multiple times a week across multiple airlines, have flown over 100,000 miles in 2023 alone, and I can confidently say that this was the worst flight experience I have ever had. Despite my multiple requests to switch seats, the flight attendants claimed there were no available options, even though there were visibly empty seats in my class. I upgraded my seat for a more comfortable experience, but the reality was far from British Airways' commitment to customer satisfaction, as ironically depicted in your onboard collateral. The entire flight, the entire crew was completely unbothered by my complaints or my experience. They did not once try to help me in the situation I was in, or offer any type of assistance with resolving the issue, despite the various options they had available to them. I would also be remiss to disregard the blatant disregard for safety displayed by the cabin crew. They allowed a 10-month old infant to be sat away from its parents, allowed a man to sleep on the emergency exit door and lever, and ignored a child being placed on the floor for flight travel.
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Posted 5 months ago
My holiday for next April for 14, my family. BA were informed on 6th October that one of my hotels will be closed for refurbishment. I have had to contact them, I have written and had no reply. I am paying around 60k for this holiday and this is how I am treated. I was told by an agent at BA I would be contacted at the end of November. This holiday took a lot of organising on our part to find the perfect hotels for the ages of our group. How this will be resolved I cannot imagine. I was also offered to cancel but I would lose my 6k deposit. If you read the ABTA guidelines state that an alternative or a refund must be made “without undue delay”. The timeframe that I have verbally been given is unacceptable. A reply to my complaint BA would be nice at this stage. I have been saving for years for this holiday to take all my family away for my birthday and I cannot tell you how upset I feel that it has been thrown in to chaos. I am even thinking I would like to delay this for one year rather than accept an alternative.
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Posted 6 months ago
BA didn’t bother to load many passenger luggage onto plane so as to not miss their take of time slot after plane was late. BA central baggage tracking team lied about bags having been on our plane and that we should have just waited longer at the carousel despite passengers’ AirTags clearly showing luggage left at take-off airport and other BA staff confirming that some luggage trolleys were left behind. Then BA doesn’t take any responsibility for baggage once it dumps it into the hands irresponsible courier company who claims that the bag was delivered to me yet it wasn’t and the hotel’s CCTV has no video of anyone with any bag, let alone mine, showing up attempting to deliver it. Carrier claims to have called my phone, yet my phone did not log the call nor a voicemail. Calling BA refers me to the courier’s phone number and they don’t answer even when I stay on hold for the full 29 minutes before they disconnect the call. Still haven’t received my bag. I wonder if I will or if I’ll get some other imaginary delivery and then what!?
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Posted 7 months ago
Would give zero if I could. We upgraded to World Traveller Plus for a flight from Cape Town to London. One of the seats wouldn't recline. It was broken. They offered us no alternative during the flight. After, British Airways would offer no compensation claiming that a reclining seat was a bonus not a feature. Absolutely dreadful.
British Airways 1 star review on 7th October 2023
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Posted 7 months ago
British airways site told me booking was unsuccessful so i then booked on Expedia (Still BA flight), only to find out a week later that BA had booked and charged me. I have been trying for about 6 weeks to get my money back as its their site that screwed up. I have even contacted the CEO, Sean Doyle, who hasn't even had the decency to respond
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Posted 7 months ago
We booked a flight with British Airlines from Prague to Bangalore which was coming via London. We called British Airlines customer service hand in advance to check if a transit visa is required. But they informed it is not required as it’s only a 2& 1/2hr layover. But we were not allowed to board the flight in Prague by Airport Authority due to no transit visa. If it is a standard process to have transit visa for all Indian passport holders flying via London ( like we were told by the airport service provider in Prague) why was this not mentioned to us by the customs service operator of British Airlines. Customer service has totally miss leaded us. We mention the entire scenario & requested for information on requirement for transit visa. They clearly mentioned not required as it’s only a 2 and half hour layover & language will be taken care of. Also mentioned it’s the same terminal. This is a very unprofessional behaviour. It’s a clear fault of the customer service department of British Airways. Travel agents are not responsible as I received incorrect information from British airlines customer service. We requested for a full flight fare refund but have not received anything back. we had to face lots of inconvenience to fly back to India. We spent a full day on road as no flights were available. British airlines have behaved very poorly with us.
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Posted 7 months ago
everything was ok until our connecting flight in London, just before take off, we were on the runway, the pilot came on to announce an engine problem. After engineers tried to fix it while we waited on the plane for over an hour we were finally told that we would have to be evacuated and rebooked for another flight but not to worry because a special crew was waiting for us on the ground to help us and set us up in a hotel except that there was no one to help us. Infact everyone refused to help us. It was Saturday almost 8pm and they just wanted to go home. Anyone with a connecting flight couldn't rebook on the application because the app wouldn't dissassociate our first flight with the connecting one in London and the staff saw this but still refused to help us. They gave us a phone number but there was only a message that said just to use the app. Finally I got someone on the phone who rebooked us for the next day. Now it's 10:30pm and I have to find a hotel room because the airline refused also to help us with that. So i had 2 choices either sleep in the airport or pay over 700GBP for a room. I don't have the money to pay for this but after a 10 hour flight, 8 hours of jet lag and the insane stress after the fact that no one from British Airways would help us I took the room. Of course I claimed reimbursement but that was over 3 weeks ago and I haven't heard anything since so I have no idea when or how much I'll be reimbursed, even though I'm not claiming any emtional compensation from the horrible situation they put me through due to their total indifference. It's finacially difficult for me right now because the money I had to put out is equal to half my salary and of course it's impossible to reach them by phone. I feel still as i did on August 26 2023 completely trapped by them and their indifference with no solution or information
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Posted 7 months ago
Girbraltar 12/08/2023 - ding dong - your flight is cancelled please take your luggage and leave the air port. Very well service, no compensation, no claim, just quick you on the street in high season in spain. Never i will use British Airways again for my travels.
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Posted 8 months ago
Terrible customer service! Flight was canceled late in the evening and they just left people without any support just giving a voucher for 10 pounds, which you couldn’t use as everything was closed and an information leaflet. After claiming the expenses, 2 months ago!, and several times trying to follow up with them, no response at all…Very disappointing the way they treat their customers!
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Posted 8 months ago
I called BA gold guest list assistance line to book 2 flights and reserve seats. I was promised this will be done only to discover I was lied to and my seats were never reserved. I have emailed their customer service to investigate why, but (no surprise) they just brushed me off coming up with a generic “we value you as a customer” reply and “seats can be changed the last min due to unforeseen circumstances”, which is a lie (they were never reserved in the first place) For the same money you can get a better service by flying with other airlines, who most importantly is HONEST! They only care if you fly business and treat other cabine passengers like dirt
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Posted 9 months ago
Don't even consider BA. If the flight is late, cancelled or similar then don't bother contacting what they define as customer services. You wont get anywhere except a row of useless, incomprehensible excuses and when you do decide to file this complaint make sure that you only have 10 documents to upload (the server does not facilitate more) and that they will anyway not arrive and/or the server will crash when you push send. I never encountered, and had never expected, that BA would become like this. I always used to fly with them when I could and was always pleased. Not anymore, and never again. The claim - 2 day flight delay, loss of earnings, accommodation, living costs and more.....BA - "thanks for your feedback and we look forward to welcoming you again"
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Posted 9 months ago
Just abominable SERVICE, the seating on the aircraft I feel like a sardine and squashed one at that. And it’s a guaranteed hour, maybe two hours delay on every flight. AWFUL AVOID!!!!!!
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Posted 9 months ago
Luggage missing even though we travelled first class . 31st July my daughter and son in law and 7 month old baby travelled business class to corfu. Missing suitcase again. Never got put on the flight that's the second time my daughter asked me today to contact the. So after several different phone calls I got threw to a very rude lady who said my daughter had to give me permission to ask. Bearing In mind all the babies stuff and things they need is in this suitcase why can't they just get the suitcase to them 😫 they paid alot of money like us
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Posted 9 months ago
If you want to have a good time when planning a trip, avoid British airways as much as possible. Cancel flights at the last minute, customer service is the worst in the world, very rude and without compassion. I, for example, will sleep tonight in the airport because my flight was canceled on the last minute, I have 100 people in front of me and the speed of solving is almost 0 and this is not the first time when I have a problem. Never,never again!!!!
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Posted 9 months ago
Our flight was cancelled last minute, they offered a flight from the different airport to the different destination( with extra expenses such as travel to airport, lower class etc not refundable). Nil options to contact them directly or to claim for a refund. I used to think that low cost airlines services are bad….compare to BA they lovely!
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Posted 9 months ago
A simple story with an unfortunate outcome that really could happen to anyone. My partner and I recently started working after studying purchased two tickets for to travel from London City Airport to Frankfurt. When we purchased the tickets, I mistakenly entered my name twice (e.g. Mr John Smith and Ms John Smith). Little did we know that our 1 this simple mistake would cost us over 300 pounds. Upon arriving at the airport we were told there was no way to change the name (apparently they can only change 3 letters where there has been a typo?) and I had no other option to purchase the last remaining ticket if I wanted to board the flight - the price: almost seven times (!) higher than my original ticket. Zero empathy was shown. Zero alternative was offered. Trusting BA's staff and under the pretence that there was apparently no other way we could board the flight we bought this ticket. Immediately after I purchased the ticket I contacted BA's 'Commercial Change Booking Team' and informed them of our situation. The service representative apologised and told me they could have changed the name at the cost of a small fee. He offered to cancel my original ticket and issue me a partial refund then, advising me that I had a claim to the difference and I should contact Customer Support to do so. I told this person several times I wanted to claim the cost of the new ticket and even asked him explicitly if by accepting this offer, I would be denied from claiming the cost of the new ticket. He said no, I could claim the difference. Fair enough - we accepted this offer and lodged a ticket with Customer Support for the difference. Two days later, British Airways Customer Response informed us that we were unable to lodge a claim because we had 'voluntarily accepted the cancellation before the flight'. We then received a couple of generic responses before this week they stopped responding to my messages altogether. Just appalling. So in short, British Airways misled and deceived my partner and I into accepting a lowball offer to waive our right to claim a refund. It keeps me up at night thinking how they can do this and get away with it so easily. I have thousands of student debt and cannot afford to just accept paying 300 pounds for nothing. This has been keeping us up at night. We won't let this one go even though their Customer Service seems to have lost interest and stopped responding.
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Posted 9 months ago
The trauma that I have experience today at the hands of your airline is incomprehensible. I am still in shock. And when I say trauma I mean that I will remember this day forever as not only the worst travel experience I’ve ever had but one of the worst days of my life. The incompetence, and it’s rampant in all directions. Do not be fooled by this airline. Absolutely god awful. Where to begin: 1. Flight was booked first class and they added my infant but neglected to actually issue a ticket to her. We didn’t know any better, when we booked initially we trusted the process not anticipating the ball being dropped by the airline in such a massive way. So we nearly missed the flight but, luckily we devoted 3 hours of our vacation to customer service where some nice ladies in ticketing were able to recover this massive error and save the flight for us. Onto the next error… 2. This one is minor but still highlights the incompetence and is a piece of the story. On its own; its minor but connected with the rest of our experience it is significant. So - our baby’s stroller was gate checked and we were told it would be at the bottom of the flight when we de boarded. But instead of bringing it to us like they said, I waited outside on the tarmac for it until they determined that they actually sent it through to baggage claim. I love holding my baby but she is 10 months and pretty heavy for my after a while. Going through customs and waiting on bags added up to 45 mins to an hour of straight holding her while juggling bags. I almost dropped her several times because my arms were simply giving out. It was beyond difficult. I didn’t plain to use her carrier or anything because, again, we trusted what we were told and we thought we would have the stroller. 3. Next - 1st flight was booked from NYC to LHR, but our connection to final destination was from Gatwick airport. This was organized by the airline and we trusted what was sold to us and their process again. So we took a $190 transfer taxi to the other airport after we landed only to find out they canceled the flight. So we arrive to the airport with no flight but we’re rebooked with my husband leaving tonight and me and my baby leaving tomorrow…. So our family was separated? Mind you both flights were set to leave from the airport we just came from. 4. We go to agents to ask for help and spent 2 hours there to ultimately be told “youve been helped” ie flights listed above, which would clearly be unacceptable for parents traveling abroad with a infant under a year. Plus at that point we were offered no hotel accommodations, no vouchers for food, no transfer service, nothing) and we’re told “my shift is ending so I’m leaving” and we were just dumbfounded. So we took another $200 transfer back to first airport. Mind you all long this entire time we’re calling the help line, where for the first hour we were told it was closed (automated recording saying it was down). It finally worked, but we were hung up on - and i counted - 9 times. Not like out of anger - but maybe just laziness, or not knowing what to do, or maybe their phone service and technology is that unreliable. Each time we called back only to go through the tortuous exercise of retelling the situation), only to no avail and to just be hung up on mid-conversation. 5. We get back to LHR and were told we could fly standby, but earliest we could get on a flight was tomorrow. The agents there offered food and hotel. And when we said we were going to lose our car rental and lose a night of prepaid hotel, we were just told to “submit a claim” with no real details or reassurance or timeline for refund or that it actually worked. 6. We agreed to try for standby so we waited where we were told for 2 additional hours. We stayed within eye sight of agents in standby area, and kept checking with them every few mins and came back each time we were told to see if there were any updates. At the final closing chance, they told us they had gotten us seats. So we pack the baby all up and set up our bags only to find out “oh sorry I was looking at tomorrows flight - you’re booked on that one”… 7. Then another girl came out sometime later and said “actually they’ve just told me we can get you through tonight” so we check all our bags and rush to security only to be denied entrance because it was “too late”. The left hand clearly does not communicate with the right hand around here. And to top it off, Ironically, they had already sent all our bags through. 8. That above was at 7:45pm and it is now 10:45pm and my infant has been here all day and we have still not been able to claim our bags back. My baby has no food, no formula, no more diapers because the rest of what she needed was in our checked luggage which we were supposed to already have access to by now. SOMEWHERE between the millionth errors of this incompetent airline they have actually LOST our luggage even though we have gone NO WHERE. 9. In addition to the above, just to drive it home, when my husband went to baggage inquiries to try and retrieve the missing luggage initially, he had our carry-on bags with him. As one would. When he got there, they told him that they had to individually search our carry-on luggage for whatever reason that no one will explain to me. At the time, I was waiting at a coffee shop with my baby because she was sleeping (finally). But I soon got a call from my husband telling me the agents told him that if I didn’t come down there to get my items that they were going to “destroy the bags”. Something about him not being allowed to go through where he needed to go to pick up the bags (that they sent in error) bringing our carry on luggage… even though it had already passed security 3 times this experience. I’m still at a loss and truly shocked that I would be told my things were going to be destroyed. Why would that language be used, especially considering the context of the situation. 10. The luggage is still lost and it is 11pm. We have spent far too much money to have an experience like this and for no one to be accountable to make amends and fix it in a way that feels fair and appropriate to the damaged caused. This was my first ever flight with my baby and I feel like this airline stole something extremely significant from my life. 11. Update - they finally found our bags and it’s 11:10pmBut naturally, in seemingly true BA fashion, the shuttle they gave us a voucher for to the hotel had its last run at 11pm.
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Posted 9 months ago
Worst experience ever! Canceled my flight last minute amid my long international flight. The next flight they rebooked for me has a 10 hour waiting time. This is so unprofessional!! Choose another airline in future.
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Posted 10 months ago
British Airways have virtually. on existent customer service . The phone lines take ages to get through to someone and I have spent nearly 10 hours simply trying to change a ticket . The BA now stands for Bloody Awful .
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Posted 10 months ago
British Airways is rated 1.8 based on 258 reviews