{"id":590593,"date":"2026-09-05T02:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/590593\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T02:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T02:56:09","slug":"mum-left-stranded-with-baby-after-british-airways-refuses-boarding-for-mistake-it-admits-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/590593\/","title":{"rendered":"Mum left stranded with baby after British Airways refuses boarding for mistake it admits"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019ve been in some fairly stressful situations, you know, I\u2019ve worked for the military. I\u2019ve worked with some very high-level people – and that had to be one that had to top some of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Lonsdale had booked her flights in February on British Airways\u2019 (BA) website. Her 1-year-old would be travelling on her lap for free but he needed his own ticket.<\/p>\n

However, the ticket that had been generated looked strange, she said. Only the first letter of his first name and four of his surname appeared.<\/p>\n

Lonsdale was sure it wasn\u2019t her mistake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that had been my mistake, then it would have been a one-letter mistake … but there\u2019s no way that I would have put \u2018O\u2019 and then four letters of his last name.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she went to the company\u2019s online chat for help, in which an agent reassured her that this was a known system error and would not cause any problems with boarding.<\/p>\n

However, when she made it to the airport, this turned out not to be the case.<\/a><\/p>\n

BA declined to share the chat history or customer service call logs with her, which Lonsdale is entitled to under the UK\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation laws.<\/p>\n

RNZ has contacted BA\u2019s customer service and can confirm it records calls for monitoring and quality purposes.<\/p>\n

In an email seen by RNZ from the airline to Lonsdale, BA appeared to admit fault for a system error that caused the misprint of her son\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

\u201cI also understand your frustration that the matter was ultimately acknowledged as stemming from a system-related issue rather than any error on your part,\u201d a customer service agent wrote to Lonsdale.<\/p>\n

But when asked about this directly by RNZ, BA did not answer.<\/p>\n

It also did not answer questions on whether such a system error was known about, or whether there were plans to fix it.<\/p>\n

The flight\u2019s operator, which was not British Airways, told Lonsdale she would need a form from British Airways to change her son\u2019s name to be allowed to board.<\/p>\n

Lonsdale said she spent hours on the phone with British Airways\u2019 customer service, but nobody could help her.<\/p>\n

She told RNZ that an agent left during the call to go home for the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve literally just kept me on hold, complete carelessness and just gone: \u2018Oh, well, I\u2019m going to go home now. Screw this girl who\u2019s waiting at the airport with her one-year-old\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lonsdale said she was becoming increasingly distressed at missing her flight – and potentially her mum\u2019s birthday celebrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just blame, blame, blame, your fault, your fault, your fault, you\u2019re going to have to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eventually, she broke down in tears, despite usually being calm, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just so shocked, I think. How is this even happening? Are you kidding me?<\/p>\n

\u201cLike I\u2019m at the airport for a 35-hour flight with my one-year-old by myself and you\u2019re telling me that you can\u2019t get me on my flight when you told me you could?\u201d<\/p>\n

The agent then escalated the matter, and another told her they would book her on to a flight the next day.<\/p>\n

She arrived in Europe a day late but in time for the party.<\/p>\n

After complaining to the airline, and months of back-and-forth emails, it paid for the expenses incurred as a result of the delay, including accommodation for the extra night in Auckland and food.<\/p>\n

It also provided compensation and a gift voucher, as a goodwill gesture.<\/p>\n

But there was no mention of fixing the system error.<\/p>\n

This prompted Lonsdale to share her story: she said she didn\u2019t want this to happen to another parent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about every mother who has to travel with her child. This should never be allowed to happen at any airline, not just them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for British Airways said: \u201cWe are sorry we didn\u2019t offer the service our passengers rightly expect on this occasion, we have been in contact with the customer and have worked to put things right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019ve been in some fairly stressful situations, you know, I\u2019ve worked for the military. I\u2019ve worked with some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[16489,74,25345,179899,6794,34705,14801,138,179900,2082,702,101,28166,2721,111,139,69,14447,12507,102],"class_list":["post-590593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-admits","tag-after","tag-airways","tag-anya","tag-baby","tag-boarding","tag-british","tag-business","tag-fielding","tag-for","tag-it","tag-left","tag-mistake","tag-mum","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-refuses","tag-stranded","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}