Ive always been loyal to British Airways… until they did this to me on my flight to Sao Paulo. I was appalled

Boarding my 10.15pm flight to Sao Paulo from Heathrow last month, I found my seat. It is a journey I make around five times a year. I was the first to board on my side of the cabin. My bag went into the overhead locker, and what I needed for 11 hours and 30 minutes went into the compartments of the business class seat I appreciate being able to afford. Moments later I would make an error that has caused me massive inconvenience – and also made me question what loyalty to a company like British Airways means.

Because I travel with them frequently, I have BA Gold card ‘status’. Yet this didn’t stop BA blaming me for what happened next. My possessions stowed, I nipped to the washroom, leaving my laptop on my seat. I was gone for perhaps 90 seconds.

I awoke the next morning around 4.45am, as the plane began its descent, and realised my computer was missing. Blearily I thought I’d put it into the seat drawer with my phone.

A smiling member of the cabin crew, Daniel, appeared and volunteered his torch to look in the overhead locker, and under the seat. ‘It obviously can’t have been stolen,’ I reasoned as he consulted with colleagues. Returning a minute later, Daniel wanted to know what kind of computer it was.

A MacBook Air, I told him. Off he went, returning within seconds to tell me that, unfortunately, my computer was no longer on board. Indeed, it had never left the UK.

By this point the seatbelt signs were on. Daniel explained that a passenger arriving seconds after me had pointed out my computer to a BA crew member, presumably thinking it had been left behind by a previous traveller. But instead of waiting or putting out a message, the crew member handed my laptop to the ground staff at Heathrow.

My laptop posed no risk as it had just been through security. Anything that large was unlikely to have been from a prior flight as the plane had just been deep cleaned. ‘Sorry!’ said Daniel, strapping himself in for landing.

As we filed out I approached Daniel, who I thought, naively, would help, given one of his team had decided to de-plane my computer. ‘Try Heathrow lost property,’ he said with an apologetic shrug as I exited the plane. Once in the terminal I turned on my Find My Phone to see that, sure enough, my computer was in Hounslow.

How would I work over the following two weeks? I had Zoom online sessions with patients, a book chapter to finish and research requiring downloads.

I spent my first day in Brazil on my phone.

I tried the BA office at Sao Paulo airport (couldn’t help), the Gold club line (ditto) and every other number I could find on its website. Often no one even answered. Several times I was cut off. I learned that BA’s customer relations department is closed at weekends.

After another call, BA emailed a ‘link you will need to use to complain’. Later, another email said they ‘aimed to provide a response within ten days’. ‘You can also use BA chatbot to track your case,’ it added.

On Monday morning, quiet despair. I spoke to five people in customer relations, who apologised and empathised. I was finally connected to the duty officer, Megan, who broke the news that it was ‘from a legal standpoint’ my fault. She was also ‘truly sorry to hear’ about my experience. She ‘completely understood how upsetting and inconvenient the situation must be’ and offered to pay for my phone call if I could produce the bill.

Six days later my MacBook was still in lost property, Hounslow.

For many of us, our laptop is our mobile office. I was lost without mine. As a psychoanalyst, I’m trying to think why this experience has been so upsetting. Who cares? There are more serious problems. More fool me for ploughing money into expensive flights. But this does matter. BA is our national airline. Many of us are loyal customers to British brands because it means something. Perhaps they symbolise something about ourselves and our past. Yet how we feel treated has never felt worse. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI) says satisfaction is at its lowest for a decade. Which? ranks BA bottom – below Ryanair – for customer service satisfaction.

BA claims to be ‘a British original’, an airline with a ‘deep understanding of its passengers’. Lots of us have fond attachments to home-grown brands from M&S to Marmite. But BA is different. Each purchase is vastly more expensive. It uses icons and references that reassure us. BA’s livery calls to mind our national flag, bestowing honour and respect on its staff and fleet, who seek to embody those timeless values. Yet my sorry tale feels like the worst of Britishness.

After a 13-day absence, I finally had a 7am reunion with my laptop at Heathrow lost property, paying a company called Smarte Carte £25 for the privilege. Who even are they? Before this, I’d received a tart email from a woman at BA customer relations, which concluded with them offering ‘as a further gesture of goodwill’ an e-voucher for £300. She said my feedback had been shared with the relevant teams to help prevent similar situations in the future. ‘That said, as the item in question is your personal property – we are not in a position to offer compensation,’ she added.

The blame had been projected on to me. In psychotherapy we would call this a defence mechanism. I had, it was inferred, missed important information. But where is it written that you can’t momentarily leave your belongings on a seat while you board? The representative was doing her job – to make BA’s error my problem. Her email wished me all the best and thanked me again for choosing British Airways. But if British brands do not care about those customers who continuously ‘buy’ their product, why should we continue to reward them with our loyalty?