An angry Ghanaian British Airways passenger whose flight was allegedly unjustifiably delayed for over an hour coupled with unsatisfactory in-flight service to passengers has taken to social media to lash out at the airline.
Dr. Kwame Sarpong Asiedu, a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, arrived in Ghana Tuesday night aboard a BA flight number BA81 and took to social media to protest the harrowing experience he and several other passengers went through.
He described the services offered them by the airliner in the London-Accra flight as “trash,” which is “only fit for the bins” and warned to wage war against the airline for travellers to boycott it.
According to Dr. Asiedu, the flight was scheduled to take off from London’s Heathrow Airport on Tuesday June 26 at 2:10pm and arrive at Kotoka International Airport at 7:40pm but it was after 3:00pm that it took off.
Per the BA flight information, the airline departed at exactly 3:13pm but Dr. Asiedu challenged that claim.
He told 3news.com that “it didn’t even depart at 3:13 it pulled back then and came to a halt”.
[caption id="attachment_89992" align="aligncenter" width="539"]
Flight information of BA81.
Source Flightstats[/caption]
The flight, he claimed was “over sold”, a situation he said led to the airline leaving behind “disabled passengers with valid tickets meant to fly to Accra in London”.
BA’s counter staff at the Heathrow Airport were also said to be “repugnant and abhorrent”, he said, adding the cabin director was similarly “disrespectful”.
“Whilst on the ground in Heathrow was like a sauna,” he stated.
He said the flight attendants were clueless as they gave “very little reason why passengers receiving this diabolical service and didn’t even serve snacks whilst we waited”.
[caption id="attachment_89994" align="aligncenter" width="960"]
Dr. Kwame Sarpong Asiedu is the Director of Pharmacy of Lexden Healthcare, UK[/caption]
“When we took off one of your cabin crew kept touching their tongue and wetting their fingers with their saliva in an attempt to separate tissue and give to passengers,” Dr. Asiedu claimed in the post which has since drew criticisms against the airliner.
According to Dr Asiedu, when passengers challenged about the service, “all this apology of a flight crew member could say was, ‘if you are not happy, there is little I can do, just write and complain’”.
He said the crew tried to make up for the poor service by serving a lot more drink than normal but “that also fell flat,” adding “In the end we got to Accra an hour and ten minutes behind schedule resulting in some missing scheduled meetings”.
“This sort of service is only fit for the stone and must improve,” he added.
He contended that just because BA enjoys monopoly doesn’t mean travellers must be disregarded.
“I believe you either improve or some of us wage a campaign to engineer a full boycott,” he warned.
Dr. Asiedu’s experience comes just six months after Ghana’s Aviation Minister Cecelia Dapaah cautioned British Airways to improve its services to Ghanaians as she threatened sanctions against the airline.
The Minister was commenting on several reports of bed bugs on board some of BA planes that serve passengers in the country.
“From your own staff to walk away from it because they felt threatened by the bed bugs is not good enough,” she told the airline officials at a meeting on January 18 this year.
UK’s Sun newspaper reported Accra-bound British Airways flight was grounded at London’s Heathrow Airport for four hours after bed bugs were found crawling on the seats.
By Stephen Kwabena Effah|3news.com|Ghana
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