What’s the worst thing about flying? Apart from crashing, obviously. Allow me to make a pitch for the noble art of codesharing, where you buy a seat on one airline only to find that it’s actually a seat on a different airline because the two airlines have joined up in an ‘alliance’ which is something that they have specially created to make your journey worse.
Codeshare alliances, sayeth the airlines “are in the customer’s best interests, allowing greater access to cities and making connections simpler” but this is a lie. What they are, in fact, is a ruse dreamt up by noted airline advisory company Satan’s Consultancy Services , to save them time and money. (And anyone who says Satan doesn’t consult for airlines has clearly never been through Heathrow security.)
Recently I was booked onto a flight with British Airways, fully expecting, as I was booked on a flight with British Airways, that I would be travelling on a flight with British Airways. Silly me. How naive. No, despite having booked a flight with British Airways I was in fact travelling on a flight with American Airlines. Why? Because they were codesharing.
So what, you might say, a plane is a plane. Shut up, get on it, have a drink, watch a film and relax. Well I would but sadly, unlike BA (which I had booked) American (which I had not) were charging for drinks and had very little in the way of film, given there were no seatback screens anywhere to be seen, just a distant overhead monitor showing Jane Eyre with the brightness turned down.
How many international flights have you been on with no backseat screens recently? And who wants to drink Heineken, let alone pay four pounds per can for it? Thing is, if I’d wanted to fly American Airlines, I’d have booked American Airlines. That’s how life works. I don’t go into a shop wanting to buy trousers only to be told that today trousers are codesharing with skirts and thus I must leave the shop dressed as a transvestite. Why should we accept this nonsense? All I want is what I’ve paid for. You don’t book a meal at Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant, pop on your glad rags and lick your lips at the prospect of a Nitrogen Baked Snail Infused With A Smear Of Barium Gas only to find when you get there that on this particular evening The Fat Duck is codesharing with Nandos. You’d be angry and disappointed and rightly so.
“But I was looking forward to Heston’s signature Macerated Otter Liquefied with a Gash of Sulphuric Aspic.”
“I’m sorry we’ve only got chicken.”
“But I don’t want chicken.”
“Sorry, did I say chicken? I meant pork. Tonight the chicken is codesharing with pork. It’s in the customer’s best interests.”
No it isn’t. Why don’t we get what we pay for? Or, if we don’t, at the very least get some sort of partial refund? You pay for BA service yet receive an inferior AA service in its place. I mean, I don’t pay BT for 60 megabytes of “lightning fast” broadband and only get less than half a meg slowly meandering down my internet pipes do I? Alright, bad example, that’s exactly what I get, but that angry Sunday Times article can wait for another day. Hang on, the waiter’s back.
“Has Sir chosen a wine? "
“Yes I’ll have the 1998 Chateau La Mission please.”
“I’m so sorry Sir, but tonight the Chateau La Mission is codesharing with Tizer.”
“I don’t want Tizer. I don’t like Tizer.”
“It’s nicer than Heineken.”
“True, but I still don’t want it.”
“I’m afraid Tizer is all that’s available Sir."
“Well, I suppose at least it’ll be cheaper than the red.”
“Dear me no Sir. It may be not what you wanted or ordered but with codesharing you see, you still have to pay the original price of the thing you bought but cannot have. In this case that’s £550 for a can of Tizer.”
I wonder if anyone’s ever investigated the conspiracy theory that the real reason the 9/11 hijackers flew AA Flight 77 into the Pentagon is that they booked to fly with someone else, quite happily and without incident to Los Angeles but, when they found it was a codeshare with no seatback entertainment, drinks were four quid and Jane Eyre was on they just simply decided to end it all there and then.
As we got off the plane (a day late due to an American Airlines (who I had not booked with) cancelling my original flight) the pilot’s voice scratched and clicked over the PA.
“Thank you for flying with us ” he said. “We know you have a choice.”
Yes, except we don’t.
At last, the blog lives.
ReplyDeleteMy *exact* experience with BA last time I flew from SFO to LHR - and let me tell you, on a 10 hour flight (TWICE) the difference between BA and American is really apparent.
ReplyDeleteA number of angry Tweets got a somewhat apologetic response from BA saying it is made clear on the flight booking page on their website which, when I went back to check was true, but only noticeable if you're looking for it, which I will now have to do *forever* despite the expectation that on the BA website, I am booking a BA flight.
Great blog post. If every one of your published articles are as good as this, I wouldn't feel too bad about buying copies of Murdoch's Sunday Times.
ReplyDeleteI had similar experience travelling between LHR and JFK in 2009 when I purchased business class ticket on BA.com. Without realising it at time of booking, my flights were operated by AA - the experience was not he same. BA aircraft have comfortable flat-bed seats with sense of own space and electronic privacy screens etc. AA 777 had 2x3x2 seat configuration - yes, middle seats in business class and they were not flat beds! And on return journey the Admirals Club lounge at JFK did not have complementary alcohol - I've never seen or heard of such a thing in an airport lounge.
I'm starting to think that the majority of people flying long haul on AA flights do so not out of choice but by accident when booking through BA. How else would AA manage to sell a clearly substandard service?
I actually posted this to my Twitter and Facebook account with 17k+ followers but then I read the last reference to AA 77/9-11 which was totally unnecessary. I then removed the postings. I loved the article until that point.
ReplyDelete