The conservative columnist and former editor of the Sunday Times, Andrew Neil, has ripped into British Airways and what he describes as the airline’s “useless” management team, whom hardworking staffers are ashamed to work for.
Clearly still furious with the now year-old changes that British Airways made to its frequent flyer program, Neil ripped into the once ‘world’s favorite airline’ in a lengthy post on X, saying the airline’s business model had “suicide written all over it.”
And a response from BA’s customer service team on X only seemed to make matters worse with Neil then threatening to humiliate the airline in front of his 1.2 million followers on X, as well as in his popular Daily Mail columns and on Times Radio.
Group ‘0’ – The benefit that doesn’t work?
As a Gold Guest List status holder, Neil is meant to enjoy the perk of Group 0 boarding priority. The benefit was introduced in March 2024 in an attempt to ease the strain of boarding gate scrums for BA’s ultra-elite frequent flyers by allowing them to jump the queue altogether and pre-board the plane before everyone else.
The problem, though, is that Group 0 isn’t always announced, meaning that Gold Guest List passengers have to line up with everyone else.
As Neil explains: “BA can’t even organise an orderly queue at the gate these days , something you’d think would come naturally to a British airline given the Brit propensity to queue.”
What seems to have irked Neil the most is BA’s decision to switch to a so-called ‘revenue-based’ loyalty scheme in which frequent flyer status is decided by how much money passengers spend with the airline each year.
For years, Neil has held BA’s second-highest frequent flyer status, known as ‘Gold Guest List,’ which, under the new rules of the program, requires customers to spend at least £65,000 (US $87,000) in a 12-month period to retain.
(The only higher status than ‘Gold Guest List’ is ‘Premier’, which is an invitation-only status normally only offered to business leaders who get to decide their company’s travel policy).
“The new BA tier points structure sets impossible hurdles even for frequent flyers regularly using business or first,” Neil slammed in a post on X early on Saturday. “I have always planned my extensive and expensive global travel through London to use BA. These days are over.”
Neil continued: “BA now run by numpties who put no value on long-standing, big-spending loyal customers, of which I’ve been one for 55 years!!”
“I remember when my friend John King was the boss how proud the crews were to work for BA. Long gone. Crews are ashamed. No idea who runs BA these days. But he/she clearly useless.”
Like many of BA’s most frequent of frequent flyers, Neil says the days of determined loyalty are over, and he’ll instead choose the most convenient and competitive airline.
“I can make more use of other airlines whose business and first seats are far superior to BA. Hello Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Etihad, etc.,” Neil continued.
Neil’s frustrations with the British Airways Club don’t appear to have been lost on the airline’s own customer service, which replied to his lengthy rant, with an agent saying he understood why Neil is so unhappy.
The reply did not, however, do anything to calm Neil’s anger.
“You have launched a fatwa on your loyal high paying customers for reasons best known to yourselves,” Neil responded. “I will have done six first class returns to NYC in the past year plus first class return to Sydney and numerous Nice-London business class.”
“At the moment you’re a case study in an historic British brand gone badly long,” Neil concluded. “I might make it my business to explain and expose why. You’re interesting as a business case study in stupidity.”
None of Neil’s complaints is new, and frequent flyers have been threatening to abandon their loyalty with British Airways ever since the loyalty program changes were announced in December 2024.
Whether those threats have actually resulted in a marked drop in custom is yet to be seen.
For what it’s worth, the Daily Mail, which publishes Neil’s column, hasn’t been a fan for years, and the airline became so annoyed with the constant stream of bad press that it banned the newspaper from its rotation of free publications back in 2019.
British Airways quietly announced changes to its frequent flyer program between Christmas and New Year in 2024, the timing of which loyal customers suspected was to ensure minimal coverage over the festive break.
Traditionally, BA ran a loyalty program that rewarded passengers simply for how far they flew with the airline. The switch to a revenue-based program is now based on how much passengers spend.
Although BA’s move to revenue-based loyalty had been anticipated for some time, the aggressive spending requirements floored frequent flyers who complained the new program would price many people out of holding loyalty.
Over the last year, British Airways has made some minor changes to the program in an attempt to appease frequent flyers, but, as Neil’s latest post on X shows, the airline still needs to go a long way to convince customers of the benefits.
