TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Among many in the long-suffering community of British Airways frequent flyers, the airline is well-known for having a truly abysmal IT system (nothing ever seems to work) and for having the communication skills of a sulking teenager.
This is why most of us are no longer surprised when we can’t log in to our accounts or view our bookings and when we’re not notified that our seat allocations have changed or that there’s been a change to the schedules.
BA is extremely capable when it comes to sending our promotional emails that it hopes will generate more business (e.g. the ones informing us about sales that aren’t really sales) and the pre-flight emails which contain absolutely no useful information at all, but when it comes to communicating things that most of us care about (and want to be informed about), it reverts to sulky teenager mode.
It was because I usually expect to get the sulky teenager service that, recently, I was surprised to receive a British Airways email that appeared important and timely.
The subject line for the email read: “Travel Advisory – Potential disruption to your journey to Newcastle” which I think we can all agree, sounds like something I would need to know about.
The headline in the email read: “Potential disruption to your journey to Newcastle” in very big letters, so the airline really had my attention here.
As it happens, I was traveling to visit a very dear friend in hospital, so not only did BA have my attention, it also had me worried. I REALLY did not need this trip disrupted.
I read on and I quickly found myself wondering what I was missing, because what followed the subject line and headline which had both warned me of possible trouble ahead), was this message:
“In order to prepare for travel, we recommend checking-in for your flight online at ba.com or via the British Airways app. Check-in at the airport will open 2 hours before departure for short-haul services, and 3 hours for long-haul services. Once you do arrive at the airport, if you have bags to drop, please try to use our self-service bag drop kiosks.
We look forward to welcoming you onboard soon.”
Where’s the “potential disruption”??!!
Where’s the “travel advisory”??!!
What am I missing?!!
Needless to say, because this was British Airways I was dealing with, I assumed that the headline was probably correct and that the incompetent intern who runs the British Airways IT system had copied and pasted the wrong message into the body of the email, so I spent the next 30 minutes searching all the reliable sources I know (I also checked ba.com) to see if I could find out what could possibly potentially disrupt my flight the next day.
I found nothing, and as things turned out, there was no disruption to my flight, I arrived on time, and a local person called me “pet*” within 5 minutes of having disembarked, so all was well.
But what was that email all about?
I have no idea, but I do know that I now have a strong contender for the “most pointless email ever sent to me by British Airways” award 🙂
*A term of casual affection most commonly used by people in the Northeast of England (where Newcastle is).
Can you beat this? What’s the most pointless email/message you’ve received from an airline or hotel?
The Willy Walsh legacy continues. I can see why he was promoted. Twice.