British Airways MAN > LHR > MIA Route Review

[darbs]

We flew this route in October 2017 and thought it was fine. We did get on the A380 to Miami from Heathrow though.

[scouser]

I did get a super cheap deal for our ba fly drive this Aug, but I won't tell the Mrs about this thread as she will have my guts for garters ha ha. I knew Mia was the pits compared to mco and I also knew the ba 747 was older aircraft but I didn't mention it as it was so cheap... I am just going to ply her with sleeping tablets, whiskey, a blindfold and ear muffs in the hope she won't realise how s*** it all is .😃

[OLS]

Originally Posted by muzland

That sounds awful OLS and if it happened to me I would also be complaining very publicly to BA.

Please update us all on how your complaint to BA goes. Things sometimes go wrong and I always find how a company deals with things enlightening.

Muzland

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I am going to comprise the complaint today, the Lead Cabin Crew member advised to email it and send a copy in writing, she asked us to include everything as said it's common complaints but BA do not listen to staff but do tend to listen more to customers - we shall see!

Originally Posted by duchy

The gate checking of hand luggage on the last leg is very common , smaller plane and all that. Gate agents are under pressure to get the flight out on time but he had the whole plane to think about and if arguing with you meant delaying passengers behind you boarding leading to missing the takeoff slot the delay waiting for another at Heathrow can be lengthy so although he could have been nicer the end result would have not changed.

Hot cabin not uncommon on older planes, pretty much unavoidable.
Awful food, the food is always worse US to U.K. No matter who you fly with ... and seems even worse because you are going home rather than more forgiving with outbound holiday excitement.

One of the reasons we chose Fort Lauderdale (still cheaper than Orlando but dearer than Miami ) is the attitude of staff on the ground there. Miami is top of my avoid list rates even higher (or actually lower) than LAX

Pretty sure Miami is contract check in staff btw
And AA are much better than BA !

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I understand that he was "busy" and has a schedule to keep however at the end of the day he is in a Customer Facing role and he should have the ability to handle queries in a respectful non confronting manner without being rude and aggressive and if he can not do that then he is in the wrong job! Regardless of the end result changing, him "demanding" that my DH checked his bag and my husband querying if he had to as we tried and failed in Miami is not an unreasonable query and should have been answered in a polite manner - he actually made the situation 10 times worse than it needed to be and delayed things further as he then had to take his time spelling his name out to me numerous times while I wrote it down for the complaint!

Food wise yes I agree plane food is never great, but I have flown on some supposedly "sub par" airlines in my time to europe and this was hands down without question the worst food I have encountered - and i'm pretty much a "i'll eat anything" kinda girl.

Miami is now on our Avoid list and I think we will try Fort Lauderdale or Tampa next time!

Originally Posted by DisneyDreamer81

I wouldn't fly BA again voluntarily. But until my work start sending me with Virgin I probably won't have a choice!

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haha good luck with getting work to change their travel to VA

Originally Posted by Moorlandman

All 3 airports (Man / Lhr / Mia) are a nightmare so to have use all 3 to get to Orlando is going to be hell.

Maybe worth the savings in school holidays for some though but cheap flights direct to Florida can be found outside these times

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I mean MAN is our nearest airport (well Leeds/Bradford is, but they don't really do international flights, i've never found ones with good connections anyway!) so we always use it and never had the trouble we had this time (my parents used it the week after us to go to Gibralta, nearly missed their flight and they were there 2.5 hrs early for the flight so plenty of time!), but never flown heathrow before and MIA, well... will be trying not to fly it again to be honest!

Originally Posted by Wembleygal

I agree with you about the US contract staff. They can be ... challenging ...

As for BA, it is not a good as it used to be, that is true, but I have seen iffy crew on BA, UA, AA, Air Canada, etc.

Other than the 787 on AA, BA, UA, etc, I find all planes too hot. You can ask an FA to turn adjust the plane temp if you are uncomfortable.

I have heard terrible things about Miami airport - one to avoid.

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To be fair, the crew on the actual planes were good, we made it clear to the Lead Cabin Crew who came to speak to us we had no issue with the actual Cabin Staff (the near broken fingers was unfortunate but clearly not done on purpose!) and we understood they were working to the best of their abilities with what they had! We did ask numerous times about the temp (as did others) and they tried to adjust it every time and re-set the system as well but just said they couldn't get it to go down so think there was some kind of issue.

Never had a good experience in Miami tbh so yes it's gone on to our try and avoid list as well!

Originally Posted by Persnicketty

BA cabin crew, however, are generally professional despite being under paid and treated poorly. No thanks to their bosses though.

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Agreed! As mentioned above we advised the Head Cabin Crew woman that the cabin crew were not an issue for us and we understood they were working with the best they had. She mentioned more cutbacks I think she said they had reduced their crew by 2 members which was why the service (non collection of trays, unanswered call buttons etc) was so slow, she said they just couldn't function "as they are expected to" with the reduced staff count. Not sure if that was just that specific flight or across the board. She made it quite clear they have raised all these concerns themselves but it's a head and brick wall scenario and that they don't listen to the staff so the staff want the customers to speak up and put in formal complaints if they ever have any issues!

Originally Posted by Wooden Top

I can only echo your bad experience of this route having done it in April. Luckily the flights were very cheap but never again.

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Yes that's the only saving grace, the cheap flight price but I think in future we will be paying more per person to do a different route than flying that one again!

Originally Posted by scouser

I did get a super cheap deal for our ba fly drive this Aug, but I won't tell the Mrs about this thread as she will have my guts for garters ha ha. I knew Mia was the pits compared to mco and I also knew the ba 747 was older aircraft but I didn't mention it as it was so cheap... I am just going to ply her with sleeping tablets, whiskey, a blindfold and ear muffs in the hope she won't realise how s*** it all is .😃

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haha yeah just keep sthum about it for now.

[OLS]

Thanks everyone for all your replies (sorry couldn't quote them all) and sorry to anyone who is yet to do this route and is now thinking "oh no it's going to be crap", just a few points for you

1) If you are on AA then you will probably have a much better experience as I have heard they are much better than BA

2) going out was OK it was the return mainly that we had all our issues with

3) I think we were just unlucky with lots of separate factors all having issues / failing and hopefully no one else will be that unlucky

4) take some sandwiches or something with you on the return journey, don't expect to buy them in the airport as there is no time before you are through to your departure section and nothing once through, we had Subways in our bags for the kids which we stopped for well before we hit the Miami Airport area madness, thank goodness as the kids wouldn't touch their food, we got them through security and on the plane without any issues

5) if you have cabin bags then try and get to the front of the queue to get on in Heathrow so that they either a) let you through with the bag (my guy let me through DHs didn't!) OR b) if they tell you that you need to check it then it's at the designated collection point early on so almost guranteed to be collected by the baggage staff, it's the ones near the end that are forgotten as the Baggage staff think they have it all but then the check in crew might tell a few extra people to leave their bags for the hold and the message doesn't filter down to the baggage guys that there is more to pick up

I think we were honestly unlucky with a myriad of things but once that bad experience has happened then it makes you not want to repeat it. We went MAN > MIA direct with TC when they did the route a few years ago and others had dire experiences with them but we didn't and always said we would fly them again (but they canned the route in May after one season I think) so it's swings and roundabouts on the day depending which staff you get and what plane you get!

[Travel]

There is no excuse for the rudeness of the staff you encountered.
We have flown that route a couple of times in the past and agree that Miami airport leaves a lot to be desired.
With regards to the condition of your plane there is currently an Air Worthiness directive on the engines of some of BA's fleet meaning that they have had to try and find aircraft to cover their timetable.

[OLS]

Originally Posted by Travel

There is no excuse for the rudeness of the staff you encountered.
We have flown that route a couple of times in the past and agree that Miami airport leaves a lot to be desired.
With regards to the condition of your plane there is currently an Air Worthiness directive on the engines of some of BA's fleet meaning that they have had to try and find aircraft to cover their timetable.

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I agree about the rudeness, if you are in a customer facing role you need to have the ability to be polite and professional in all circumstances and if you can't do that your job role should be pulled up by snr management - I know that's what would happen at my place of work!

So the Air Worthiness directive could have been why we had a particularly old tatty aircraft on the return. Even the window blind things wouldn't shut which was stressing out my 6 yr old (she's scared when she sees the dark outside the plane for some reason!) I tried for ages to get our 2 down and my DH on the row behind tried his row and we couldn't do it, they were almost jammed up. The stewardess said "oh... yes, sorry there is a "knack" to get them down" and we had to get out of our seats so she could force them down in a special way as they were all broken!

[duchy]

One of the great mysteries of life ...why regardless of who you fly with the food flying back is always worse than the way out ... surely all American airline meal catering companies can't be rubbish ? (It's not just Florida)

[OLS]

Originally Posted by duchy

One of the great mysteries of life ...why regardless of who you fly with the food flying back is always worse than the way out ... surely all American airline meal catering companies can't be rubbish ? (It's not just Florida)

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haha maybe all American airline meal catering companies ARE rubbish - perhaps there is just one big company who supplies all of them and thats why it's all crap Next time we will be buying Subways for the Adults as well as the kids haha

[Moorlandman]

Originally Posted by duchy

One of the great mysteries of life ...why regardless of who you fly with the food flying back is always worse than the way out ... surely all American airline meal catering companies can't be rubbish ? (It's not just Florida)

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Have you ever checked where the food is from? My meal contained items from Canada, Mexico and Chile. No wonder it wasn't very fresh!

[dixonsontour]

Sorry you had a bad experience. We did this route August 2017 and have rebooked for this August. For under £300 a person flights for dates fully in school hols I'll put up with a lot. But we had a great experience.

We did fly AA on transatlantic leg out and BA on way back. Immigration at Miami was fast but we used the machines. We were in car and away very quickly. Thought it was all well organised and signed eg you get mover train to car hire.

T3 at manchester is small but we are used to it as we fly from there if we go AA Man - Philly - Orlando. Food options are limited but the italian restaurant does a nice breakfast or costa. Coming home we didn't find the wait a problem and had a nice breakfast at giraffe at heathrow.

On way back had a great meal at Chillis at Miami airport and didn't eat on BA plane.

Landing afternoon in Manchester is different but I felt better as I didn't have a nap and just went to bed early whereas if you are home early morning then the tempation to nap is strong then it messes you up later.