An open letter to British Airways chief executive Willie Walsh

Dear Mr Walsh

I wrote to you on January 11 to complain about British Airways having lost my luggage on a flight between Aberdeen and London on January 2.

I am sorry to have to inform you that your company lost my bag again yesterday while travelling from Berlin to Aberdeen via London Heathrow on the BA983 and BA1314.

I appreciate that you have had issues in recent days at London Heathrow, but that is no excuse, in my eyes, for my luggage to disappear.

I have for years not used British Airways as it was uncompetitive and provided a poor service between Aberdeen and London. Your rival bmi offered far better pricing and flights that generally arrive and depart on time. They also, unlike British Airways, do not cancel their services to Aberdeen at the first whiff of a problem on the network, and which on several occasions in the past left me stranded at Heathrow and your customer service disappearing like snow off a dyke in the sun.

I have since January 1 this year made two return flights with British Airways. On both occasions you have lost my luggage on either of the journey legs; once between Aberdeen and London on January 2, and yesterday (Jan 19) between Berlin and Aberdeen..

That you would have to concede is entirely unsatisfactory. I would go further and suggest it is nothing short of atrocious.

I appreciate you are busy and that you deferred my last complaint to your customer service department (ref 6223433).

You are, however, the boss of British Airways. You are ultimately responsible for presiding over the organisation that has displayed gross incompetence, not once, but now twice.

My luggage was loaded into your system yesterday at 11am. It is, however, unlikely to be delivered to Aberdeen until 1650 this evening. Your lost baggage department tells me there is no guarantee that it will be couriered to me this evening. They say I could go to Aberdeen (an unnecessary 80 mile round trip and incurred at my cost) to collect my bag, but your handling agents in Aberdeen, Aviance, told me last night that was not possible. Why is there no consistency in advice?

A company lives or dies by the standards of service that it provides. Your cabin crew may well be the best in the business in averting a disaster at Heathrow on Thursday. Your luggage department has a considerable way to go before it meets the same high standards.

In my eyes British Airways has died. I will, in future, use any means possible to avoid travelling with you as you clearly are unable to provide me with an acceptable level of service. To do so once can be put down to an unfortunate problem; to do so twice in a fortnight is irresponsible.

I fully expect you will defer this latest complaint to your customer service team as you seem unwilling to engage with your customers. For a chief executive to do that displays a level of arrogance and, I would venture, an unwillingness to admit that you are running a company that is riddled with problems and which is doing its very best to alienate its customer base with all the issues that then causes for your reputation and then subsequently how it is seen in the wider community.

I do look forward to receiving a response from you as to why you have failed twice in a fortnight to provide me with an acceptable level of service while travelling with the airline that you run. I, however, fully expect to be fobbed off with woeful excuses from your customer services team.