A Scots mum was left dumbfounded after she was refused to travel on a British Airway (BA) flight alongside her 10-week-old baby.
Suzy Pope, who works as a travel journalist, was excited to embark on a sunny trip to Mallorca with her daughter Maeve, husband Mark and a group of friends for their first family holiday.
After following the correct protocols, the family of three arrived at Edinburgh Airport at 5am on Saturday, October 6 – yet were told they’d been placed on a reserve list as the flight was overbooked, reports Edinburgh Live.
The trio were instructed to travel through security and head straight to the gate where they’d be updated following pre-boarding.
They were soon told they would be allowed to board the flight as there were ‘three spare seats’ – the family only needed two.
However, after 20 minutes of back and forth with staff at the gate, the young family were informed they could not board the flight.
BA have apologised to Suzy and her family following the fiasco, and claims they are committed to ‘putting things right.’
“We booked the holiday before I fell pregnant as soon as BA released the direct flights,” Suzy said. “We book it every year as I love to hike and my husband cycles but we thought it would also be the perfect place for our first holiday so we added our daughter to the flight as soon as we could.
“As a travel journalist, the logistics of travelling do not phase me. I always make sure everything is done properly and in the past I found BA to be mostly reliable.
“We had some reward points left so decided to book in business class. When we arrived the lady at the BA desk told us we would be on stand-by and that our luggage, bike and baby items would need to go to the side of the plane.
“If we were allowed to board then they would be put on the plane. If not then we would need to collect them domestically.
“It was a shock as I thought being a young family with a baby we would not have been put on stand-by. We had also been in contact three or four times with BA prior to flying to book all the various elements and I could not book our seats but was reassured this was nothing to worry about.
“My suspicion now is we must have been in an emergency exit and when we added our child it caused an issue. But this was never raised with us and we were told everything was fine.
“We had to proceed through security, getting all the formula bottles checked, baby out the pram as they were poked and prodded. We got to the gate to wait for the staff arriving and were told we would have to wait until everyone was boarded.
“This is when alarm bells started ringing. I travel a lot for work and felt it would not leave us with a lot of time to sort out any admin so I did not think we were going to get on the flight.
“Suddenly a lady said three seats were available and we rejoiced, even joking to those around us that we only really needed two. She disappeared for about 20 minutes and we started to become concerned again but were told they were carrying out some checks and not to worry.
“But all of a sudden the woman returned and said sorry we would not be boarding. So we were left in complete limbo for a while.”
The family were left frustrated as their friend who was already on the flight, claimed the flight lay on the tarmac for some time as they claimed there was a discrepancy with passenger numbers.
The mum and dad were stranded at Edinburgh Airport with their 10-week-old baby, approaching the BA desk to be told their only options would include a five hour stopover in Munich or to fly to London to Madrid to Palma, going through security three times, in order to get to Mallorca on Saturday 5.
“When something goes wrong at an airport you normally know when it’s your fault but we did everything right,” Suzy added. “We booked it so far in advance, added all the right things, paid all the extras and still did not get on that flight.
“We told them we were more than happy to sit in economy. We just wanted to get to Mallorca.
“Our friend told us the flight left with empty seats which doesn’t make sense for BA. My partner fed the baby while he waited for our luggage while I tried to work something out.
“The options we were given were not appropriate for travelling with a baby. Having to stop over for five hours or go through security three times, having the formula checked and baby disturbed, would have been too much.
“They tried to tell me the only other option would be to travel on Monday but due to my job I knew there were flights with other providers. They agreed to compensate us for any new flights we booked through another company.
“So we booked the 6.30 pm flight to Palma through Easyjet. But this meant we had to get taxis home before returning to the airport.”
Suzy is looking to be compensated for the way her family has been treated.
The couple were forced to fork out a further £750 to book their bike box and extra luggage as well as spend over £100 on taxis to and from Edinburgh Airport.
As well as this they were forced to organise a new transport to take them to their villa in Mallorca after missing the initial transfer.
“It was a drastic way to miss a flight,” Suzy continued. “This is the worst experience I have had travelling with them.
“Travelling with a tiny baby you are already anxious with how they are going to cope on the flight but it never once crossed my mind we would not be allowed to board the plane. I’m not sure I would travel with BA again if there is another viable option.
“The idea you can show up at the airport on time, do everything right and still not get on the plane really puts me off. The experience brought me to tears.
“It never once felt like they were really trying to help us out of the situation, it felt like everyone was flailing and every member of staff was more concerned about how they would look out of the situation.
“We just wanted someone to tell us how we could get to Mallorca.”
Suzy, Mark and Maeve have since arrived in Mallorca.
A spokesperson for BA said: “We’re really sorry for our customer’s experience, and we’re contacting them to apologise and put things right.”
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