The universality of incompetence

“I have noticed that, with few exceptions, men bungle their affairs. Everywhere I see incompetence rampant, incompetence triumphant…I have accepted the universality of incompetence.”

Laurence J. Peter
‘The Peter Principle’

Long term perusers of these gentle meanderings will no doubt be aware that – the occasional rant aside (usually concerning matters political) – I am not in the habit of ‘trash-talking’ anyone or anything that might – for whatever reason – have of late aroused my ire.

Should you utilise the search function built into this site to seek out occurrences of the term ‘incompetence’ – for example – you would find but a handful of posts, of which only two concern the performance of an organisation with which I was obliged to deal. Those two posts refer to a single incident back in 2014 when the UK’s national communications carrier – British Telecom – contrived to leave us without telephone or Internet access for six weeks over Christmas and the New Year.

Given our recent experiences in the travel line you will probably not be surprised that I am about to add another couple of posts (or more!) that will share the same tag. Regrettably this example also involves a corporation that lays claim to be a UK national carrier – though of a rather different commodity. I refer, of course, to British Airways.

Back in 2019 we were also out and about around the globe – paying our first visit to the UK since emigrating in 2015 and adding on at the end a rather lovely little cruising sojourn in the Greek islands as a means of relaxing and recuperating. We flew from London to Athens and back (somewhat against my better judgement) on British Airways – who proved to be all too competent at extracting from us the cash to cover the pre-booking of extra legroom seats – but all too incompetent in the manner in which they re-assigned those seats on the return journey to other people and bumped us to the window-less back row of the aircraft. Naturally they also subsequently omitted to reimburse us. I swore mightily that I would never again fly with BA – an oath which I sadly let slip upon discovering that they alone had the best price/availability for this year’s attempted safari trip to Africa.

Now, I apologise in advance for the length of this diatribe, but I am eager to reveal the exact extent of the amateurishness (with further apologies to real amateurs) of the service provided by pretty much all concerned in this wretched business.

Here is the first part (or pre-amble):

Having decided upon our long-dreamt-of trip to the African continent (specifically a safari excursion to Botswana and to Victoria Falls) back in December last, we duly booked flights with British Airways from Victoria to London (via Seattle) for 22^nd May – and on to Johannesburg for 25^th May. We made a further onward booking to Maun in Botswana with a regional airline. The return flights were booked for 6^th June from Johannesburg to London and then back to Victoria (via Seattle) on 11^th June. All BA flights were booked in Club Class except for the short hop from Victoria to Seattle and back.

The Girl and I each made our own bookings so that we could use our own credit cards and/or points, but were assured that the two bookings could be ‘tied’ together.

Over the ensuing five months until we traveled we spent a great deal of time and money purchasing specific clothing and gear for our safari as detailed in previous posts.  The excitement was building.

Over the months leading up to our departure BA made a number of changes to our bookings; altering the time of the Seattle/London flight; cancelling the return Seattle/Victoria flight (which necessitated us staying an extra night in Seattle at our expense); changing the aircraft type for the Seattle/London leg (and seating us in different parts of the aircraft in the process)… before finally – 24 hours before our departure – cancelling the following day’s Seattle to London flight and re-booking us on an American Airways flight in economy! After a long and feisty phone conversation with a BA agent (on the part of The Girl), we were re-routed on an Aer Lingus flight from Seattle to London via Dublin – in Club Class.

Our journey from Victoria to London was at least for the most part comfortable and pleasant (kudos to Aer Lingus), even if rather longer than originally planned.

You will be unsurprised to hear that none of our dealings with BA to this point inspired confidence. The experience was, however, nothing compared with that which was to follow…

…for talk of which the gentle reader must patiently await the next post.