Bad air day: British Airways breaks its own violin rules

From the violinist Rita Manning:

Yesterday I was attempting to fly from London Gatwick to play the Four Seasons in Jersey with the Locrian Ensemble at the Jersey Opera House.

We got to check-in early, three violinists and one viola player. I had deliberately taken the smallest shaped violin case possible to be on safe side, but I got a flat refusal from the BA check-in team.

She said BA had recently changed its policy (which we know is not true) and told us we had twp options – to put the instruments in the hold or buy seats for them.We had no option but to buy the seats for £240 each to ensure we got to Jersey on time to do the concert.

We were also told that our return flight back to Gatwick this morning was full so we wouldn’t even have the option of buying extra seats again. We ended up buying new tickets with Easy Jet later in the day.

We’ll leave some space below for British Airways to explain itself.