BMIBaby Flight from Faro

ALWAYS HAPPY TO HELP

TELL THE WORLD WHAT WENT WRONG AND HOPEFULLY THE WORLD WILL GET BETTER

		Complaint Date 23rd November 2007	Complainant D H Speckner

On the 22^nd November I returned from Faro on the BMIBaby Flight WW1724 which was supposed to go to Birmingham. Regretfully, we got diverted into the East Midlands airport due to a technical problem and we were delayed getting back to Birmingham for about 3 hours.

As I considered the delay was due to mismanagement and incompetence by the ground staff at East Midlands I wrote the following letter to the Customer Relations Office and outlined my grievance.

A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

The letter from BMIBaby is just typical of the letters written by tour operators, travel agents, airlines and so on.
We suppose they are all afraid that anything they admit to could be used against them in a compensation claim and, therefore, they go to great length to shift the blame rather than put their hands up and admit that they have screwed up. They clearly diverted into East Midlands for commercial reasons and they messed up on the ground but they just will not admit to it.
So, there it is, as the complainant has not asked for any compensation we consider this matter as closed and we will leave it to the visitors of this webpage to make up their own mind as to who is right and who is wrong.

I had not asked for any compensation or any refunds, I merely wanted to make my point in an effort that the same mistakes could be avoided in the future and I simply expected a truthful reply and maybe an apology.

See response

They did apologise for the inconvenience but to my utter astonishment I was given a list of nonsensical excuses which are neither truthful nor convincing and, quite frankly, I do not understand their reasons for this

According to their reply, the plane was diverted into East Midlands due to a shattered windscreen in the interest of passenger and crew safety and not due to a commercial decision, yet the incident occurred before we reached the south coast of the UK and, following the logic of their letter we should have diverted into any of the airports along the coast line and not carried on flying past Birmingham into the East Midlands Airport. If passenger and crew safety was paramount then we should have landed as soon as the fault was noticed.

The letter also states that the delay in returning our luggage was due to the amount of scheduled aircraft from other airlines as well as our own and that the delay incurred for all passengers arriving at East Midlands. This is incorrect as all other passengers arriving at the same time had their luggage delivered on time and left the luggage hall long before us.

Finally they are claiming that they cannot be held responsible for the delay of the coaches due to traffic holdups yet they knew since 16.00 hours that we would be diverted into East Midlands. The coaches did not arrive until 18.45 hours, nearly 3 hours later. It only takes about 30-45 minutes from East Midlands to Birmingham and had they organized the coaches earlier they would have been there despite the heavy traffic on the motorway.

We have just returned from Faro Airport on BMI Baby on flight WW1724 to Birmingham. Two hours into the flight I noticed that the plane had dropped its altitude and had reduced its speed and shortly after this the pilot announced that due to ‘a small technical problem’ we would not be landing in Birmingham but that we would be diverted into East Midlands Airport and that they would then take us back to Birmingham by coach.

Apparently, so we were told after we had landed, the plane had developed a cracked windscreen and BMI had decided that it would be more beneficial and cost effective to have this repaired at their base at the East Midlands Airport.

I can fully understand and support this decision but I cannot accept that the passenger care which followed this incident is acceptable for a company like BMI Baby which boldly claims

we're award winning

bmibaby has been voted "Best No Frills Airline" in the Telegraph Group Travel Awards for three consecutive years (2003, 2004 & 2005). The awards are voted for by 25,000 readers of Telegraph Group publications and all respondents must have travelled with the low cost airline to register their vote. Thank you to all of our passengers for voting bmibaby into the top spot and helping us to celebrate triplets!

The pilot knew at 16.00 hours when the plane dropped its altitude and speed that it would be diverting into East Midlands yet after we landed at approxm. 17.00 hours we had to wait an hour for our luggage as, so they said, they did not have enough man power to unload this ‘extra’ plane.

The two coaches, which initially, were supposed to pick up the passengers at 18.00 hours did not arrive at the East Midlands Airport until 18.45 hours due to ‘heavy traffic’ on the motorway. It only takes about 35 minutes from Birmingham to East Midlands, BMI knew at 16.00 hours that the plane was to be diverted yet it took them nearly 3 hours to provide a transport back to Birmingham.

The after service, or better said, the non-existing service after we had landed was disgraceful and a show of utter and total incompetence by the staff responsible for arranging the transfer back to Birmingham. We landed at 17.00 hours at the East Midlands Airport and we did not get back to Birmingham until 19.45, nearly 3 hours later.

Like I said before, I fully understand and support BMI’s decision to divert into the East Midlands Airport for operational and cost reasons but I cannot accept that they then treat their passengers in such an incompetent and uncaring way and I would appreciate your comments and suggestions before I post this letter on the Complaint Shop website (www.complaint-shop.co.uk)

This was either total incompetence by the staff at East Midlands Airport or a simple ‘don’t care a damn’ attitude once we had landed. It was BMI’s decision to divert the flight for their benefit and they should have done everything possible not to inconvenience their passengers.

RETURN TO TOP

GO TO BMI REPLY

RETURN TO TOP