Tuesday, August 30, 2011

British Airways Conditions of Carriage

A disturbing incident at British Airways raises interesting questions about their Conditions of Carriage, the fine-print online contract that you and they enter into when you buy a ticket. (In many markets what is bought and sold is at least partly a legal contract.)

To make a long story short, we were accosted in the public (pre-security) area of London's Heathrow airport by a bizarrely aggressive BA employee who declined to identify himself. I took his picture. When I was about to board the plane an hour and a half later, I was asked to step aside, where another BA employee told me that photographing BA employees was forbidden, and it was a condition of carriage that I delete the photo.

I have not been able to find that clause in the published COC, and have written to BA for clarification.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.britishairways.com/travel/genconcarr1/public/en_gb
7a8 is properly vague: "If you have used threatening, abusive or insulting words towards our ground staff or another passenger or a member of the crew of the aircraft."

Anonymous said...

If you took a picture, it went on your SD card, and you can probably undelete it. But I bet you have a better memory of the employee now.