We'll never fly BA again, say angry passengers

Disgruntled British Airways passengers at Heathrow's Terminal 5 today complained about the disruption caused by the strikes.

John Cawley, 54, from Liverpool, said he would never fly with the company again.

He, his wife and two sons were due to fly to Newark in the US before going on a cruise around the Caribbean but their internal flight between Manchester and Heathrow was cancelled.

Instead the family was forced to pay £350 to hire a minibus to travel down south.

Mr Cawley said: "It seems there are no certainties with BA at all. We're having to take this trip one step at a time, once one bit is over we start to worry about the next one. There are question marks over everything."

He said that his travel agents had warned him a few days ago the internal flight might be cancelled and had advised the family to arrange alternative travel down to Heathrow.

He added: "We'll never use BA again, we wouldn't want to go through all this again."

His wife, Camille, 49, said they had been told there would be a restricted cabin service on their flight to the US.

She said: "We've been warned that there won't be the same high standards on the flight. We're not expecting the service to be as good as usual."

Professional cyclist Josie Loane was another unhappy passenger.

The 29-year-old said she had been travelling for around 20 hours after leaving her native Australia early yesterday morning, only to find her connecting flight to Oslo had been cancelled.

She said: "I've been re-booked on to another flight but it doesn't leave until around 2pm so I've got lots of waiting around.

"It's pretty bad. They haven't even offered me a free meal ticket or offered to look after my luggage or anything.

"If my flight this afternoon goes to plan then I'll be all right but if not then there's no way in hell I'll fly with them again."

She added: "The staff just relate to their policies. They're all well and good for them but it doesn't really suit everyone.

"I know they've got their certain ways to respond to things but it doesn't really help the customer."

A number of BA customer support staff could be seen milling around the departure hall holding clipboards and giving advice to anyone that needed it.

There appeared to be little disruption on the check-in boards, with only one flight, the 8.30am to Tel Aviv, saying it was cancelled.

But many of the others had notes next to them saying they were being operated by different carriers.