Ghana’s President Thinks British Airways Should Improve Service Quality

Free beverages and meals are gone on BA short hauls, effective Jan 2017. (for the record).

Considering I have flow round trip SIN-ACC in Dec 2016, twice in 2017, and 2 more trips planned over the next 4 weeks, I can attest that the Club World seats and IFE aren't as nice as those on newer versions. The aircraft was swapped out for a different 747 which had more biz seats and that aircraft was much fresher and had IFE with a proper selection, updated finishings, seat controls, remote, etc. The President is smoking crack.... I can't speak for economy class. I'll be in First Class on the LHR-ACC in mid-May with the family.

@QR I liked your post. I think there are good academic debates to be had about which colony ended up with the most pain under British Imperial control: I would agree with your classification of colonialism in India as being primarily abstractive (average income for an Indian peasant did not increase by a single penny in the 200 years between 1750 and 1950. Not a penny). But I wouldn't necessarily agree that the regimes in the settler colonies - US, Canada, Australia, NZ - were less brutal. British imperial policy was effectively genocide in some parts of those places for some periods. Tasmania was possibly the worst place in the British Empire: not a single aboriginal was left alive. That strikes me as significantly more brutal than policy in India and Africa. I guess my point to Lauren was that if everything in your polity is infected with vicious racism, you're more likely to see racism everywhere ("if your only tool is a hammer, everything will look like a nail"). But that's all a long way from BA's treatment of passengers.

@Paul — Not sure how my original comment was subtly racist. It's well documented that the nature of colonialism in Africa and India was much more extractive and brutal, not to mention the obvious fact that colonialism in Africa and India was much more recent. No one alive remembers British colonialism in America, but my parents, aunt, uncles, etc. all remember British colonialism in India (I'm a naturalized American citizen, but of Indian origin. And I actually grew up in the UK!). In any case, I found your original point compelling—that this is just how BA treats everyone, not just select markets! From personal experience, though, I'd say there's something else going on. If it's not race-related, it's good old-fashioned classism.

I find it amusing that by using T3 and 747s, BA is now accused of racism. As mentioned above, many other destinations both in Africa and North America go from T3 and use the same aircraft. As for the punctuality of the Accra flight, it's been much better in recent months than when it was in T5 and I'd argue that the service from T3 is more attentive due to a smaller team and operation. I've never known anyone to deliberately leave bag behind either....it costs more to reunite them with customers so there is no incentive not to load them. The accusation of racism is easy to make without any facts. BA has it's faults and doesn't have the most update products but to claim that this shows racism because of aircraft or terminal used in certain routes is a far stretch. What about those routes from Gatwick on 777s with the older products...is BA discriminating against the Caribbean, New York, Tampa, Oakland, etc? If those that complain want the removal of the 747 because it's old, just realise that any change could lead to a reduced capacity due to the nature of the BA fleet.