Passenger describes “10 hours of hell” on British Airways flight
Flying isn’t always a pleasurable experience at the best of times, but for travellers onboard a British Airways flight from London Heathrow to Nevada in the US, it was almost insufferable.
Nicole Lightbody, a 26-year-old accountant from Glasgow, Scotland, has detailed her painful flight to The Mirror, which she labelled as “10 hours of hell”.
Nicole alleges she and her cousin were forced to listen to increasingly loud static from the aircraft’s loudspeaker for five minutes at 15-minute intervals.
She recorded the sound and uploaded it to social media after arriving at her destination, saying the loud buzz began after an oxygen mask randomly fell from the ceiling and remained down for the entire flight.
@British_Airways after a flight from Heathrow to Vegas listening a noise for the whole journey 1 of my friends has bn given £20 voucher pic.twitter.com/LqQqwiiUI5
— Shona Lightbody (@Shona2607) November 15, 2017
“The cabin crew did everything they could to deal with it,” she conceded. “It happened every 15 minutes for five minutes at a time. They came around with noise cancelling headphones for people to put on.
“There were people asking to be moved because of the noise. We couldn't relax because of the noise. It was 10 hours of hell basically.”
To add insult to injury, after filing a complaint with the airline, she was offered just £20 ($35) in compensation – something she said “felt like a smack in the face”.
A spokesperson for British Airways issued a statement to The Mirror denying the problem persisted for as long as Nicole alleged.
“We apologised for a temporary issue with our public announcement system that affected a small number of customers on a flight last month which was quickly resolved. Our highly trained cabin crew also reassured customers after a single set of oxygen masks deployed accidentally."
Tell us in the comments below, what’s the worst flight you’ve ever been on?