I fly the flag but BA is lowering the standard says Victoria Blackburn

More help should have been given to passengers (Image: Getty) A pleasant Monday in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, having a light lunch at the city’s food market, prior to going to the airport to catch our flight home. And then I looked at my phone to see the news: a catastrophic fault in Britain’s air traffic control system meant that all flights in, out and around Britain had ground to a halt. At first my British Airways app showed the flight was delayed and then cancelled altogether. What to do? Who knows? I sped back to the hotel to consult with my husband. My BA app was, somewhat mysteriously, offering me the chance to cancel the flight myself. Eh? Attempts to log on to the BA website were similarly inconclusive: I was not offered the option to rebook, was given no information whatsoever about what to do and when I did try to rebook something by myself was offered a flight which promptly disappeared off the screen when I clicked on it. Eventually I did manage to rebook something via an independent website, which charged me through the nose for the privilege. As I write, I am still in Sweden although I very much hope that by the time you read this I will be safely back home. A staggering amount of passengers were left stranded at the airport (Image: Getty) Why is there not more help offered to passengers? Even now, I am a totally loyal BA customer: it may be decades since it was the world’s favourite airline, but it is always my first choice to travel and I still try to fly the flag. But as I write, no help at all has been offered, other than telling me the flight was cancelled no communication has been made. And as for air traffic control, could it really be true that one solitary incorrect input into the system brought the whole shebang to a halt? The travel industry suffered horribly during Covid and some of us are prepared to do every -thing we can to make up for their loss. But those travelling this week have had the distinct sensation of watching the backs of industry officials making for the hills, while the rest of us are stranded in limbo. I’m off to the airport soon. I’ll report back next week. King Charles didn’t have an easy childhood (Image: Getty)