Consumer expert Jane Hawkes has said that British Airways needs to “get back to basics” after it was named the world’s worst long-haul airline.
She also called for airlines to be “penalised heavily” for failing in their legal obligations to travellers.
The devastating verdict came after a Which? survey of 9,000 flights and 19 airlines put BA joint bottom with Air Canada with a satisfaction rating of just 62%.
The consumer group asked travellers to rate airlines based on factors such as punctuality, value for money, customer service, seat comfort and food.
Responding to the findings, consumer expert Jane called for BA to make the effort to regain its past reputation: “British Airways should hang its head in shame over these results which are a far cry from its heyday as the World’s Favourite airline.
“The ongoing failure of airlines ranked poorly to recognise the urgent and well overdue need for improvement is short sighted, disappointing and quite frankly completely unacceptable.”
BA was rated with just two stars out of five in many areas, such as value for money and seat comfort for both short and long-haul flights.
The survey also found that the airline has high levels of flight cancellations and rated it 12 out of 16 airlines for short-haul flights, with Ryanair being rated the worst.
Jane, founder of the Lady Janey consumer blog, added: “Airlines need to go back to basics and cut the fluff when it comes to customer service. People should be able to pick up the phone when they want to, speak to a real person, not have to navigate endless customer service options, not be left on hold for unreasonable lengths of time then transferred and cut off meaning they have to start from scratch or wait months for a refund.
“Enough is enough, people have been fobbed off for long enough. Airlines need to ensure they fulfil their legal obligations to passengers without question and be penalised heavily for failure to do so.”
The airline has disputed the Which? findings and said they are “entirely at odds” with comments from hundreds of thousands of customers.
