British Airways - Inflight Customer Services, Well They Just Don't Care!

I'm outraged by British Airways inflight customer service. Rob, my husband and I recently went to New York with our 3 Grown up kids. Rob and I were travelling premium economy whilst our kids were going economy.

Rob's screen wasn't working so he couldn't watch a film. Actually our steward was lovely and after a few attempts to reset it said he would call the chief steward over to discuss options. The chief steward had a problem talking to both Rob and I and would just talk to Rob. I found him quite rude and dismissive, I'm unsure if it was because it was Rob's screen that was broken or because I was female. He offered to move Rob to business class after the meal - he said there was only 1 free seat but even if there were more he would only move 1 of us. He refused to accept the idea that the 2 of us travelled together so wanted to sit together. I was even more wound up by the fact that he then asked what car we had and when we bought it did we get one free? I'm not sure what that analogy was meant to show but he obviously thought he had made his point.

I'm regretting our decision to recently travel British Airways often, to build up our miles. How can they think this is the right way to treat customers and regular customers at that?

Rob asked, even though I had to ask Rob to ask as the chief steward refused to talk to me, if we could both be upgraded on the way back. This wasn't something he could do. The option he proposed was for one of us to move to business class or not. Our nice steward suggested we may get extra Avios points, so Rob put this to the chief steward who said we wouldn't get many but he would see.

5 hours later the chief steward still hadn't returned to see if Rob wanted to move to business class, Rob asked our steward what had happened and was told somebody in business class had a problem with their screen and had been moved to the spare seat. Customer service is obviously at its best when we are just ignored!

The chief steward did come over again just before we landed. He said a lot of seats in business class had issues with their screens so he was too busy ( on a 7 hour flight) to come back and see us. Our custom is not considered as important as theirs obviously. He also mentioned, to our astonishment, that he thought I was abusive as he was dealing with Rob and I was interfering! Apparently there are no Avios we can get and no compensation for getting a seat with no inflight entertainment.

I'm doubtful if other airlines would have dealt with the problem of a broken screen in this way. I think British Airways need to remember we, the customer, have a choice. They also need to train their chief stewards in customer relations better! Next time we go to New York I'll investigate Virgin Atlantic. I'm definitely going to follow this up with Customer Services in the UK. I wonder if they'll be better than the inflight version!