British Airways Reviews 13,307

Shambles! Due to closure of Gibraltar airport during the afternoons this week, BA all diverted to Malaga. Fair enough (although Easyjet simply brought flights forward so still used Gib when it was open the mornings). My beef (one of many on this trip) os that BA simply told passengers to make their own way to Malaga, 80 miles away. And the BA App as well as ba.com both showed the Malaga flight (as well as the Gib flight) as cancelled, but we had no email or contact from BA. I flew from Gib with Easyjet in the end, excellent all round. At Malaga on the way to Gib earlier in the week there was supposed to be a coach to take us to Gib and BA ground staff to meet us a d tell us where to go. No staff were there at all, everyone could find no info, no coach either, it turned up and hour later and we stumbled across it by pure luck and persistence, still with no BA staff around.

Date of experience: May 14, 2025

Horrible airline to deal with if you need to make changes to your booking. Expect to spend hours on the phone with them (if you are lucky enough to get through) and then to be hung up on several times and extorted for any changes or additional bookings.

Date of experience: May 14, 2025

Booked economy seats to Tirana and wrongly assumed that our silver status with the Executive Club would enable us to check in a bag free. Wrong. After two painful and long-winded calls to BA's so-called customer service centre, and once being cut off, we were charged £50 per bag per passenger person leg! Ryanair style. What has happened to this airline. What's the point in paying double the price of a low cost airline ticket just to get the same shoddy rip off service. We did use the BA lounge (which again we are entitled to as Silver members) and it was the usual overcrowded untidy mess. For some reason they have very low tables which are totally impractical to eat at, and plates only big enough for a toddler, to try to discourage you from eating. If you are going to serve food, however grudgingly, at least provide adult plates. There's nothing special about the lounge. Not even any reading material apart from BA's own very uninspiring magazine. Boarding was ok, although because there was no staff member to assist a disabled passenger we were left hanging around on the air bridge for ages, never mind the poor treatment of the disabled person. Departure was late because of some issue with loading the luggage (although the pilot excused this away by saying there was an air traffic delay anyway). The onboard 'service' was the usual insulting small bottle of water and tiny snack. Do yourselves a favour and go with EasyJet, Wizzair or Jet2 or basically any airline that doesn't take you for a mug.

Date of experience: May 14, 2025

BA took the money for our flight twice, then denied it. The bank told us we have to wait until they give it back. It took a week to do this. Sounds like a good money spinner when you multiply this by thousands of other passengers. Happened with another major airline too. Is this common practice? Have they ever replied to any of this criticism?

Date of experience: May 05, 2025

Flight cancelled to MRS. 1 of only 6 at LHR today, so bad luck. But what a shambles. They presume I'd be happy to get a late flight to Paris and stay overnight (no mention of where to stay or who pays!) and get from there to MRS. So I see there is availability at 11.20 and 14.30 tomorrow and call to rebook. I spend 56minutes on the phone, 46 of which I was left dangling, finally giving up. They have spent almost 2 years "upgrading"the website which is far worse than it was, incredibly slow and unfriendly. I'm tired of looking for words which describe their incompetence. Elon Musk would fire the lot of what is an incredibly useless (and highly paid) management team. A disgrace to the nation, and they don't even care....

Date of experience: May 13, 2025

Stay away just sums up the take as much as possible and just don’t care,i will not travel with this embarrassing company ever again

Date of experience: May 12, 2025

Booked a package holiday with BA and so so disappointed particularly with the flights, the hotel wasn't much better. Just really poor service from their staff (not even polite, bordering on rude) going out the plane was late due to the pilot being sick (Fawlty Towers esc), the food is really poor on board and if you want any you have to preorder even cold cobs etc and the coffee is really awful. The plane was old and felt tatty, you couldn't hear the poilot it was all muffled. I wont go on I think you get the drift "BA your just miles off it". Won't be returning.

Date of experience: May 04, 2025

My friends luggage went missing.We started our 4 day break without any clothes etc.We are now back in London,still no luggage and no communication of any purpose with BA.Shocking service,not sure what to do as I don't think BA knows where it is.Please return our luggage,really disgusted.

Date of experience: May 08, 2025

British Airways has unfortunately become one of the worst airlines I’ve dealt with. During my trip to New York last year, both of my flights were cancelled, and the in-flight entertainment was broken.
It took six months of complaints—and eventually a Letter Before Claim threatening legal action—before I finally received a response acknowledging the issue.
Despite this, I’ve now been told that my companion voucher will not be extended, even though the only reason I couldn’t use it was BA’s own failures and lack of timely communication.
A deeply frustrating experience from start to finish. Be aware—and if you have other options, don’t use British Airways.

Date of experience: May 02, 2025

BA has become Ryanair, but without the cheap price. We've flown many long haul flights (hoping each time it would be better) but we're done. Never again. There were so many arguments on our last flight due to people reclining their seats and the passengers behind them going mad due to lack of space. The problem is that BA have made their seats smaller, there's no room. They're so hard and uncomfortable, too. If you don't have a bad back going, you will by the end of the flight. The toilets are gross, don't go with socks or you'll regret it. There's no service in between meals, just a cup of warm water once if you're lucky. The meals are foul. Really disgusting. I bring my own food now. I'm gluten intolerant and there are no snacks after the 'meal'. Bring food or you'll be hungry. Bring water, too. Or do better, don't book with them at all. I feel sorry for the staff as they're usually quite nice and have a lot of complaints to deal with. It's such a shame as they used to be good.

Date of experience: May 11, 2025

BA have cracked to correlation between misery and price. They will charge you more to make you more unhappy.

It’s hard to tell the difference between BA and Ryanair. Mmm well, Ryanair have more generous legroom, luggage allowance, leave on time and pretty much fly when they say they will fly. BA, miserable experience, no legroom, unhappy staff and planes so ancient they have a heritage sticker.

Date of experience: May 12, 2025

We boarded from Gatwick to Catania on the 5 th of May
The flight was appalling and delayed by over an hour from Gatwick. BA flight, number 2612, but Gatwick Airport is the worst it must be said especially when the air hostess has sprayed aerosol sanitiser with everyone’s seated in the plane just before takeoff absolutely filthy plane.
We also missed the transfer pick up because of the late arrival of the flight.

Date of experience: May 04, 2025

BA seems to have taken their customers and current high seat demand for granted. The service on aircraft is of variable quality - crews that (at times ) clearly don’t care (congregate in the galley and avoid passengers ). LHR T5 (the home terminal ) - fast track arrivals only available these days for first class (first class not available on most flights ) - my Club class ticket combined with Gold seem to count for nothing. In fact the benefits of Gold seem limited these days. I’ve started flying American - way better experience.

Date of experience: May 11, 2025

If you book your British Airways flight via Expedia, and it gets cancelled by British Airways, good luck receiving a refund. The two companies will send you to each other claiming they are not responsible for the refund, but the other one is. When I pointed out to BA that clearly there is a miscommunication between the two, this is the reply I received: "this is a common practice done by the third party travel websites and we face this issue on a regular basis".
To summarise: BA work with Expedia, knowing that their agent will try to avoid refunds, and they are ok with it, and have no interest in assisting their affected customers.

Date of experience: May 11, 2025

BA cancelled our return long haul flights. I called customer service (I believe it’s in India) and asked them to refund those flights. What should have been a simple process to return me ££££ took over 3 MONTHS and worse, took HOURS and HOURS of calling and writing e-mails over those months. It feels awful to feel so angry with strangers about so many lost hours.
So many excuses were made each time I called. One woman in the customer service call centre actually said ‘Sorry, we are helpless here. We can’t connect you to refunds’.
BA are holding customers money and earning interest on it when they should be returning it instantly AND employing more staff in refunds.
I will never fly long haul with BA again. Pay a bit extra for a better company and save yourself the stress. As a British person I believe the company should be forced to change their name as it’s such a poor advert for the country.
If your money isn’t returned to you within 2 weeks start a complaints procedure. Don’t wait in hope, it won’t ever come.

Date of experience: May 10, 2025

I did the online check in about 24 hours before my flight like I was supposed to. The system assigned me a front window seat in the economy cabin and I accepted that seat at check in. The power tripping gate agent decided she didn't like me and changed my seat to a middle seat at the back of the plane. Worst customer service ever. Will NEVER fly british airways again.

Date of experience: May 05, 2025

Business class passenger. Firstly the seat lay out is awful. It feels as though you are in the aisle. Not relaxing at all. Secondly BA have lost my luggage. It has been over a month now. I have heard next to nothing from BA. I have to contact them almost every day. Will never travel with them again. Ever. The stress this has given me words can not even describe. I literally feel sick to the stomach. All of my essentials, my valuables MY BELONGINGS are in there. How in this day and age is luggage still getting lost. I travel frequently every six weeks. This was the first time travelling with BA and first time my luggage has been lost. Surely as a business class passenger my luggage is priority. What an awful airline. I will not let anyone I know travel with BA. Awful awful airline and service.

Date of experience: April 09, 2025

We flew from Heathrow to Italy on the 6th May 2025. We were boarded onto the plane only to realise the the tyre needed changing. The leg room on the plane was less the the length of a ruler,(30cm). We stayed cramped in a full plane and told to stay seated while the tyre of the plane needed changing. After nearly 2 hrs of waiting, we finally took off with no water or refreshments. There was no air-conditioning as we sat like squashed vegetables.
Very disappointed and dissatisfied with BA service. An airline that was once a worldwide recognised as the best.
I will never fly BA again.

Date of experience: May 06, 2025

Shocked at the level of poor customer service I have received from the call centre staff in India, and to highlight an unresolved issue concerning a refund related to my booking.
I recently amended a booking for travel. What should have been a straightforward ticket change turned into an ongoing ordeal.Firstly with the Trainee cancelling 1 leg of the journey to then initially charging me £1300.26, which included the cost of the change and airport taxes. Then receiving a call back day before my flight by British Airways and informed that this amount was incorrect and the correct fare should have been £1272.20.
I subsequently paid the £1272.20, and was advised that the original payment of £1300.26 would be fully refunded. To date, I have only received £1000 back. It appears that £300.26 – which I understand was for airport taxes – is still outstanding and I have been charged for this.
I have made several calls to the call centre to follow up on this issue, but have been repeatedly met with rudeness, dismissiveness, and a complete lack of professionalism. Promises of callbacks from supervisors have not been honoured. On my most recent call, I spoke with a representative named Jenet who was exceptionally rude, patronising, and repeatedly spoke over me without attempting to listen to my concerns. I asked her for a name of a supervisor to speak to or contact her response was no need you can speak with me that should bd enough!

Totally disappointed with British Airways, a company I previously held in high regard. I have family members that work for them. I am especially disheartened by the lack of accountability and the dismissive attitude of the customer service team.

Zarina M

Date of experience: May 09, 2025

Awful app and website. Tried to save my passport 5 times does not work

Date of experience: May 09, 2025