I got fobbed off by British Airways’ customer services – judging by the rep’s name, I guess the email originated in Bangalore – I guess they don’t want to know that deaf customers can’t watch their in-flight entertainment system.

My next flights are also with them, same route and will happen after a month’s time. So, we’ll see if anything changed.

Dear Mr Sterry

Thank you for coming back to us.

We carefully consider what our customers tell us – not only here in the
customer relations department but right up to Board level. So when a
customer has been dissatisfied, as you clearly were, you can be
confident your voice has been heard at the highest level in British
Airways.

We meet with our Board every month to share our customers’ views with
them. This means we can invest in and improve the areas that matter
most to you.

We recognise this is an aspect of our service we need to improve. We
now have a specialist team whose responsibility is to achieve exactly
that, and they report directly to our Board.

Thank you for contacting us and for choosing British Airways. We
genuinely appreciate your custom and look forward to welcoming you on
board again soon.

Best regards

I flew from London Heathrow to Hong Kong with British Airways.

After my last experience with British Airways, when I flew a return trip from London to Los Angeles way back in 2004, I was hesitant to try BA long haul again. For short trips, I like BA over other airlines in Europe, even for all its faults, the ride is more enjoyable than with other airlines.

But long haul is a different story.

First, in-flight entertainment is pretty much essential – you can only read so many pages of a book before you’re all booked up – and with me being a very fast reader, I can finish a book in a few hours in a flight. Back in 2004, on that return trip to LA, a flight of some 10 to 11 hours, there were about three movies out of 12 that were subtitled (in English) on the outbound flight, but the return leg had no such subtitled movies at all. I complained to the duty manager at Heathrow airport on my return and she upgraded my domestic flight for me as I was so travel wary by that point.

Fast forward exactly four years. London to Hong Kong means stuck in a metal tube for just shy of 12 hours. I hoped the in-flight entertainment system has been upgraded. It was. It has over 100 channels of entertainment thanks to the marvels of computer technology. You’d be forgiven if you thought there would be at least ten channels with English subtitles (seeing as British Airways mostly operate out of the UK to far flung destinations). Nope, there were just two channels with subtitles – Ironman (a blockbuster movie) and some kids movie. That’s it. I have another 10 hours to kill.

I was very disappointed that my complaint four years ago has fallen on deaf ears and that BA haven’t used the new technology to provide subtitles. They lag behind competitors like Virgin Atlantic who provided portable DVD players with DVD in 2004 for deaf customers during flight. Malaysia Airlines had at least 20 movies with English subtitles. So did Singapore Airlines. If they can do it, why can’t BA match them or do better and subtitle the documentaries too?

A staff member at BA doesn’t seem to get it at all… the first paragraph seems to suggest I can’t watch subtitled programmes! I fired off a reply so we’ll see how this develops…

[quote="British Airways Customer Services"]
Thank you for writing to us. I am sorry you were disappointed with the
in-flight entertainment on your recent trip to Hong Kong. I can
understand how frustrating situation it must have been as could not
watch any programme with English subtitles. Please accept my sincere
apologies.

People’s tastes vary widely and we do try to meet the expectations of
our range of customers. We are now in the process of revolutionising
our onboard entertainment systems to give you more choice and control
over what you watch or listen to, and when, throughout your flight.

On all our long haul flights we are installing individual touch control
for every seat – with control over a choice of 100 films, TV programmes,
music albums, radio channels and audio books.

There will be a touch screen or handset fitted in each seat for you to
start, stop, fast forward and pause your own entertainment. For our
younger customers, we offer a dedicated Skyflyers selection of
children’s movies, TV, music and stories. In our FIRST, Club World and
World Traveller Plus cabins there is also a new choice of 20 games.

Another great innovation is the touch-screen questionnaire, so you can
tell us exactly how you feel about the entertainment selection on your
flight, and how we can improve it for you next time.

It will take a little while to roll out the new in-flight entertainment
system on all our aircraft, but I hope that next time you travel you
enjoy the range of entertainment on offer.

By way of an apology, I would like to offer you Highlife Shop! vouchers
for £50 with my compliments. You can put them towards items on British
Airways flights where the Highlife Shop! range is available. The expiry
date is shown on the voucher and they are not renewable. You will
receive it shortly at your postal address.
[/quote]

Here’s another rant about an airline – it’s becoming a favourite past time of mine. But, having built up an expanding list of airlines that I flew with, I think I know the difference between a decent one and a crap one.

So, what’s my problem with Die Airways? Despite having a modern fleet (747-400) serving the popular London-Bangkok route, a travelling time of 11 to 14 hours depending on the direction and which way the wind blows.

It proudly boasts that it has been in operation for 48 years. You’d be quite sane in thinking they’d know a thing or two about looking after customers. Unfortunately, it’s not the case at all.

I’m a regular flyer, doing my bit to impose my size-11 carbon footprint on the world, and I’ve never had these problems before:

1) The seats are so backbreaking, I’d sell them to CIA as torture equipment. No sitting position or posture will find you your comfort spot. I find myself folding my arms for 14 hours, and lean to the side slightly. As a result, I’ve a utterly sore backside, which 2 days after the flight, show no sign of abating. Particularly troublesome is my shoulders are aching and preventing me from sleeping well. My elbows are punishing me for folding them for such long periods.

2) The staff, enthusiastic at first, become lazy and hide in their wee kitchens for hours on end. If you want water, you get out of your seat and hunt the lazy sods down. Then, they will grudgingly pour you some water – but not a full glass. Oh no, that would be too much. Half-empty.

3) Movies/videos/screen – using DLP projectors is getting old, and really bad epilepsy-inducing colour-wheel artifacts are prevalent on all of the screens. If that wasn’t enough, the movies kept stopping and restarting. Then, I presume a computer detected something has gone wrong and attempts to rewind/forward to the right position, but by such time, you’ve lost interest or forgotten what had happened as you figgetted so much in the chair to find that sweet comfort spot.

4) Their time management skills leave a lot to be desired – it was over an hour late in departing their home flagship airport in Bangkok, and reasons varied from birds on the runway to people late coming on board to the pilot’s in the toilet. Sure, I’d let this go, but when querying them about arrival time at Heathrow, answers were as varied, if not colourful as the first attempts: We will be on time, we will be early, we will be 15 minutes late. We will be there when we will be there. We landed 1.45hrs late. Fortunately I still managed to catch my connection flight. My colleague who flew with me didn’t.

The only good thing about the airline was the food. But, then again, Thai food is great, so it’s to be expected rather than a surprise.

My British Airways connection was a breeze, even using Terminal 5 – though I didn’t have any hold luggage – and the seats were soooo comfortable – I instantly slept, slept through the take off and landing.

So for now, British Arseways is my friend and have booked an alternative airline for my return to Cambodia – Malaysia Airlines.

Now time to nurse my shoulders.

As some people will know, I bought a computer with go-faster stripes on ebay.

As you might know from my blog, I’m off to Cambodia on 1st March.

It turns out my computer is being made to order (I thought it was a grade-A unwanted over-ordered stock).

It’s going to be in my house on 3rd March. Gagh! At least I can take some comfort in that it will be brand spanking new with that new-smell

Your Order Information
Customer Number: 987654328765438765432876543876543876543287654328765
Order Number: 1243920450234897409856573049871230489740981237540184375

Further Information
Order Date: 20/02/2008
Estimated Delivery Date (on or before this date): 03/03/2008

Pre-Production, Phase 2 of 5 as of 20/02/2008

Please enter the 3rd, 5th, 11th characters of your memorable data.

Please enter your numeric username given to you after sign-up.

Please enter your password.

The following are three questions drawn from 12 that were asked of you during sign-up. You must answer exactly:

Please enter the 6th, 1st, 10th characters of your favourite game.

Please enter the 3rd, 9th, 14th characters of a memorable place.

Please enter 2nd, 1st, 9th characters of a bicycle you own.

Next time, they will ask me what is the Planck’s Scale is.

It took six months (though two months of that was down to me, it still took six months no thanks to them).

To get an internet access to some my banking facilities.

It’s an awfully long time to be without access to your money – especially if one is deaf, not living in the UK and has no one else linked to the accounts.

The bank, verbally sympathetic, their actions suggest otherwise.

I first sent off an application more than six months ago. This was in two parts, paper and online. I duly did both.

Many weeks later, while working in Saharan Libya where no permanent habitation can be found within a 4-hours drive in any direction, I received an email asking me to telephone on their freephone number or if abroad, the international number.

The phonecall was needed to confirm the online part of the application was indeed completed by me.

I replied explaining that I’m in the middle of nowhere, telephone facilities are non-existent, even if there were, I cannot use them for that I’m deaf. I had explained that on the paper application form.

I asked if the other joint-account owner could verify on my behalf.

No, it must be me. I was asked to fax a copy of my passport off. There is much fuss at my end, reasons I don’t want to explain for fear of identity theft, but managed to get a fax off to them of a copy of my passport.

They then pointed out they want a certified copy of my passport. Eventually I found the right person (it must be a senior doctor, bank manager, judge or a policeman of a high enough ranking). This was all done without me being in the UK. All by email.

A faxed copy was sent off, with the certification.

They replied saying the passport look like it has been resized and must not be a scanned copy but a photocopy. I tried again – photocopy, then scan it in, then fax it.

They say the same thing.

By this time, a further two weeks elapsed. I pointed out that I’ve been unable to reach my accounts for sometime now and I really don’t want to let another monthly period pass by without checking.

They said they cannot do anything else, and must be a photocopy of the passport and it must be certified. Due to me having the passport in the middle of the biggest sandy desert in the world, I cannot do anything more.

I replied saying I am going to go to a branch in the UK, it will be in London as thats where my return flight ends up. They replied saying get the bank to fax the passport.

I arrived at a branch in London, I was immediately turned down because they want the account details for the relevant account – “sorry, we cannot help you, you have a credit card”. I said but it is for that account only, that is all I have. She was really bitchy, and that is a word I very very rarely use. Even in explaining to her that all she had to do was ring up X department, they will know who I am. She said I could ring them up myself. I pointed to my hearing aids and said I would love to, but I have a hearing probl…. “NEXT PLEASE!”. I was shuffled to one side. No point fighting someone behind a glass facade and has about as much empathy as Margaret Thatcher had for the miners.

I called into another branch, where I was met by a very kind assistant. After talking to the revelant department, he faxed off a photocopy of my passport.

A week later, I was due to leave London and head home. No emails has arrived confirming receipt of my passport. I went back to the branch and saw the same assistant again. On contacting the department he was told he need to fax it again, but certify it.

On returning home in late September, I followed the instructions on the new activation email. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the original “memorable” data I had put down – trying it three times before being locked out.

I tried to get my relative to phone on my behalf to rectify the problem. No such luck, it has to be me and I must have my phonebank passwords and all the plethora of identifications related to telephone banking. I never registered for it for obvious reasons. A few days later I got an application for phonebanking. Useless!

Before I knew it, I was back in Libya and unable to do anything at this end because I knew I’d be back to square one. ARGH!

I retried again now that I’m back home, applied on paper and online, stressing it must be resolved fast or I’m unable to complete the process from another country.

Lo’ and behold – an email asking me to phone them. I got my mum to telephone them, asked them to relay questions to me, and I’d answer them after my mum has left the room. This was all explained to them.

No, they are not authorised to provide questions to someone who is not answering them. How stupid is that?

So, I got an email five minutes later asking me to fax off a copy of my passport within 24-hrs. I rushed to my home branch and got them to photocopy and certify the passport, fax it off.

Now, I know a lot of stuff is related to security, but this is the most over-the-top procedure I’ve ever had to deal with. Why isn’t my signature not enough? Why isn’t the other joint-owner on the account isn’t enough to authorise on my behalf? Why can’t they be a little bit more flexible – it is possible to flexible without compromising security, but it seems innovation is not a criteria for a bank.

So, what did I learn from all this:

1) Get to know a few people at your home branch well – set up your account with them, and use them regularly if you can (not easy when banking hours matches office hours). After a while, they will be able to be flexible, and do more for you than the average faceless customer.

2) A department or services away from the local branch is incredibly inflexible, reachable only by phone, resulting in a limited service for deaf people. When applying for a new account, find out what services you need and what services can be immediately offered by your local (and other branches) without the use of a phone or another department.

3) Don’t ever forget your passwords – write them down – I rarely write passwords down, but for banking purposes, I do, because the sheer hassle of forgetting passwords as a deaf person would be comical if it was something less serious. Writing passwords down does weaken security somewhat, I do my level best to put it somewhere safe, and if found, is meaningless to someone else. But that does means I have to remember where I put it!

Representatives of the banking industry said on See Hear a year ago that services to disabled people are not reduced due to centralisation. Let this be an example of many from my blog and other stories reported by deaf people all over the UK.

Deja vu?

No, I’m having more communication-related problems with my bank again even though I switched banks. To be fair, it is a non-standard account with a small

team responsible for it. However, I’d have thought by having a small team responsible for my account type, I’d have more luck with them knowing me and be prepared to be more flexible.

Oh boy, how wrong I was! I needed to do something regarding the account, and this was back in early July this year. To date, it’s not resolved despite going into three different branches in London and a branch up near my hometown. Argh!

I will post more once the issue has been rectified cos it’s a bit sensitive at the moment.

After 11 years of using this email address, I will no longer be using it.

UKOnline, an ISP, wants me to either dial in at least once every 60 days or pay £15-odd a year to keep it active. Since I’m a nomad, it’s impossible to dial in, and I’m not prepared to pay £15 to receive hundreds of spam a week.

So if any of you guys still use this email address to contact me, you need to use my other one – kyle A sterrymeuk where the A is the @, and put in the dots between sterry and me and uk (don’t want to spell it out for spam robots!).

Dear Customer

We sent you an email on the 12th September about the ongoing use of this UK Online email account. The 30 day period in which to re-activate your account is coming to a close. You will need to act this week to prevent the closure of your email address.

Our records show that this email address is part of a UK Online Pay as you Surf account that had not been dialled up for 60 days prior to our email on the 12th September. The terms and conditions of our Pay as you Surf state that you must dial into your account every 60 days in order to keep the product active.

Please note that simply accessing your email via a non UK Online internet account will not meet the terms and conditions.

If you currently use another ISP to connect to the Internet, but wish to keep your UK Online email address – you can convert your Pay as you Surf account to a mail only account for just £14.99 per year. Log on to www.ukonline.net/home/mail to sign up.

Apologise if I’m vague on the details – the organisations involved took steps to rectify the situation so there’s no need to point out their names.

A while ago, I took part in a training exercise to test a set of procedures. There were many volunteers from charitable organisations – many of them playing different roles.

I was tasked to come in as myself, but only able to communicate in BSL (even though I don’t sign, I just play the part). The idea was that one of the charity volunteers, representing their charity would come along and try and communicate with me and explain what is going on. A few did manage to do some very basic signing to ask if I am ok, and a few resorted to writing notes, indicating a charity interpreter will be coming along as soon as she could (1 hour).

While waiting, and left to my own devices, another charity volunteer, playing a support volunteer, an old man of about 70 years of age, if not more, approached me. He asked (verbally) if I was ok, I said yes, but nobody is telling me anything and I have nothing to do. Now, I must point out that I was a 25 year old blokey bloke with a stubble at the time.

He took me over to the children’s play area, and gave me a Barbie doll and gestured me to sit on the play mat with the kids and he walked away, absolving any responsibilities in the matter.

Rather than being speechless, I laughed at the sheer idiocy of the whole situation. Rest assured that the relevant charity boss has been made aware embarrassed about the situation and will look into deaf awareness training.

The scary thing was, the guy thought he was doing the right thing and saw no problems with it. Now, is it any wonder why deaf people have a harder time getting a job than criminals who’ve done a stint at Her Majesty’s pleasure?

Those who know me will know I love food… a little too much perhaps… and rarely leave anything on the plate.

Today, I went for lunch with me ol granny and me mam to a wee pub by the main coast road in Ellington, Northumberland. Last time I went, they did an absolutely superb lasange – Garfield would have been damned impressed. The pub is well sign-posted from the coast road.

Naturally I got lasange and I could just tell by looking at it that it wasn’t good. In fact, it was the worst piece of food in about a decade. I’m used to crappy food on camp in Libya, but at least it was edible. This *thing* – you could taste the gritty burnt mince separately from the “sauce” which was totally devoid of any cheesy taste, and the pasta was semi raw, and the top cheese layer had a wobbly omelette look to it. I complained, and hesistantly went for another meal – chicken breast in white wine sauce and three vegs

It came as a leg of chicken, in what was effectively white milk and unmixed white wine. The chicken itself was edible and plain. The carrots – totally tasteless, turnip hada transculent look to it. I ate half the chicken and left the rest and complain
ed again. Waitress apologised profusedly and loooking embarassed.

Finally, as we came to settle the bill with the bar lady, she was about to charge us the full bill when we pointed out the *crap* food. So she called her supervisor who insists we pay the full price. I bawked and said there is simply no way I am paying full price. She argued that I ate all the chicken, that I should pay in full. I corrected the silly woman that I ate half of it, and admitted the boiled potatoes were lovely, but left the rest of the crap. She said, I had a look at your plate and you had all of the chicken.

Bloody hell! I don’t buy a whole meal just to eat the chicken. I also pointed out that my companions had to wait for me and finished theirs before I had mine, and that we complained from the outset. I said I will pay for the drinks, they were really good, and my companion’s food, but no way I am paying for full price for the piece of crap I was served. I remained calm, but her implication of calling me a liar was starting to tempt me to just simply walk out, just leaving a bit of money on the bar.

She conceded in a huffy puffy sort of way – I suspect because we were talking up staff’s time, and holding other customers up who were listening with interest. Another couple remarked that they wished they had complained as their food was poor and waited well over an hour because the “cook left the oven off”.

Really shocking food, a service from the supervisor that would make arguing a bill in France with a rude Parisian waitress a pleasure. Sadly, I will not be going back there in a hurry.