A Black passenger on a British Airways flight from Houston to London who had spent $5,000 for a Business Class seat says he was left humiliated when a flight attendant deliberately skipped him during the pre-departure beverage round.
The passenger says he still can’t properly explain “how small, humiliated, and angry I felt in that moment.” The man continued: “I paid the same as everyone else, yet was treated as if I was in the wrong seat.”
I paid $5,000 for Business Class on British Airways and the flight attendant decided I didn’t belong there.
byu/mmassagetable inBritishAirways
The incident occurred on September 24 aboard British Airways flight BA-194, a scheduled daily service from Texas to London. Sitting in 9F, the passenger was towards the back of the large Club World cabin and able to see what was happening around him.
“As I settled in, the flight attendants began offering welcome drinks to every passenger in my row. Everyone except me,” the man explained in a post on the popular social media site Reddit.
“The people before me got their champagne. The person right behind me (white) got a drink. But when the flight attendant reached me, she skipped me completely.”
Initially, the passenger patiently waited, thinking that perhaps this was an oversight by the flight attendant and she would eventually return after realizing her mistake. When she didn’t return, the passenger went to her and asked why he hadn’t been offered a welcome drink.
The flight attendant explained that she thought he had been upgraded to Business Class and, presumably, was either not entitled to a welcome drink or had to wait until the very end.
“Let’s be very clear: I was the only Black passenger in that row,” the passenger wrote. “She had no way of knowing my ticket type. Even if I had been upgraded, protocol is to offer all Business passengers a welcome drink.”
“So she saw me and decided I didn’t belong,” the man continued.
“This wasn’t about a glass of champagne. It was about bias, assumption, and respect.”
The passenger has already written to British Airways demanding accountability rather than a “scripted apology.”
“I want to know how they’ll ensure no other Black passenger ever has to feel like this on their flights,” the passenger continued. “Because if you can charge $5,000 for a seat, you can train your staff to treat every passenger with dignity.”
Commentators quickly rallied in support of the passenger, with one saying that even on occasions when he had been upgraded, he had still received the full experience.
“I can’t express how livid I would be if this happened to me,” another person wrote. “While compensation to you doesn’t make their behaviour acceptable, it should never be allowed to happen again.”
And a third person chimed in: “That’s an awful experience! I’ve had poor customer service and experience with BA, but not with a side of racism.”
Matt’s Take – Simple mistake or overt racism?
From what we know about this incident, it’s very hard to draw any conclusions as to what was going through the flight attendant’s head. Every airline has a different policy on how it treats upgraded passengers, but you would like to think that the flight attendant could, at the very least, have acknowledged the presence of the passenger.
It may well be that she genuinely thought the passenger had been upgraded and should, therefore, be served after all the full-fare paying customers. This makes for an awful experience for the passenger and is possibly the worst way to treat someone if you want to convince them to buy a Business Class ticket in the future, but it is a plausible explanation.
Ring your call button and ask for a glass of champagne. If any issue, ask to speak with the Purser.
No one else had to ring the call button.
Used to be a British Airways One World Emerald and regularly flew paid 1st Class US West Coast to Heathrow. After about 10 round trip flights and reading what else transpires and seeing it personally, have not flown British in last 24 years and glad to continue that way. Still OneWorld Emerald, but now on personal paid travel
BA is an equal opportunity offender.
They seem intent on making sure each and every passenger has a personalized reason to never fly BA again.
Few airlines have such a dedication to polished incompetence.
My wife (brown skin) is repeatedly and routinely treated as “less than” in business class by numerous airlines. They skip her for drinks. They refuse to communicate with her in a language she can understand. They serve her last for meals or ignore her until she has to ring her button. She has to ask other passengers to request a drink on her behalf. Crew members try to block her from entering the business cabin during boarding. They try to kick her out of the business check-in area. Unfortunately, numerous airlines have a built-in bias that only white people fly in business and first class. This doesn’t surprise me at all, as sad as that is to say.
This I am sorry to say sounds like imagination.. All stewards and stewardess get training and are scrutinized for any bias… Plus the staff themselves are multi racial. If there was a problem anywhere it would immediately be flagged by another crew member.. I am sorry.. all international airlines treat ALL racial type passengers the same and especially when they are travelling in up market bigger fare class. Is it possible that you might be looking for any difference at all which to you might look like discrimination…
BS, Airlines are too woke for something like this to happen. Read comments on the View from the Wing who republished this BS story.
Totally disagree with you Matt. Everyone in business is the same whether upgraded, on miles or paid in cash or miles. As a white person it has never come up as an issue with getting the pre-flight drink in business. This was and is an unfortunate example of racism. BA needs to fix this FA and put her into retraining before she ever steps into the business class cabin again, if at all. And a clear apology to the passenger.
I have to disagree with you Alex. Correlation is not causation. A black passenger in a cabin of 30 or so was the only one missed and that passenger claims they were the only non-white passenger. I work for the airline and can confidently say that in 20 years, I’ve never seen or heard of a cabin crew member treating a passenger differently because of race. By dint of being an international operator, the airline is full of cabin crew from all sorts of nationalities. I find it an implausible leap that because they were missed out – the assumption is that it is because of race. The passenger suffered the mild annoyance of being missed out (even more annoying when you’ve paid for business) but, in my opinion, that is where this story ends.
This sounds like bias or incorrect understanding of the BA service standards. Every club passenger should be offered a pre take off drink, regardless of upgrade status. This is written into their se4vice standards. This crew member should be re-educated. Perhaps she was newly joined from another airline with a different policy?
Oh for goodness sake it’s obviously an attempt to play the race card and squeeze BA for Avios points
How so? Are you disputing the incident?
A blatant lying psychopathic passenger. I’m retired BA crew and I can explain: boarding is the worst time for cabin crew in any cabin, especially Club World, you’re trying to deliver pre-take off service and manage safety/security issues in a confined space with not enough colleagues and with passengers trying to squeeze by … it’s the case that occasionally someone gets missed for these reasons. If a passenger has been upgraded, you’d be highly unlikely to know, and even if you were told beforehand, it wouldn’t make any difference to your pre-take off delivery. The only time it might change the delivery is during the drinks/meal ordering process, especially if you’re trying to ensure that Gold Executive card holders get their first choice of meal, you might then ask such upgrades towards the end (if they weren’t also gold card holders). This passenger is clearly lying, no crew member would have said what he claims, because there’s no reason, and to pretend it’s a skin colour matter is abhorrent. Shameful attempt to race bait BA.
Unless this is corroborated, I smell a Jussie Smollte “incident”
As a retired BA cabin crew member, I don’t believe a word of this and im black myself! BA crew are well trained. I have flown all over the world with so many crew, including flights to Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya and never seen anything like this happen. We all wore name badges so it’s very easy to identify and report a crew member.
BA should investigate with concerned flight attendant and reprimand staff if guilty of racist behavior.
BA should investigate the matter state facts to remove any racism doubts.
Firstly, PYOK, shame on you for using such a misleading title for your article. It implies the passenger was missed out on purpose.
I am ex crew and if anything crew give passengers better service than white people simply because they are worried about incidents like this being misconstrued for racism when it was highly likely a genuine mistake.
The person could have asked for a drink, or pressed the call button but no, they have to make this about race. It is so tiresome to hear people of colour doing this so frequently. Get over yourselves.
I have missed out several times on pre departure drinks as have many of my friends and we do not cry racism. These things happen, deal with it and stop whining.