That digging noise yesterday was the sound of two publicly quoted companies, Ladbrokes and British Airways, desperately trying to bury a cracking story, one which has been reverberating around internet chat rooms and paints both companies in a bad light.

To recap, Chris Bell, the chief executive of Ladbrokes, instructed the company's travel agents to boycott BA when booking staff flights after being personally inconvenienced by the airline while holidaying in Barbados.

Mr Bell's 14-year-old daughter and friend had been bumped off a flight. They were only reinstated after quite a row, and BA compounded its sin with its clunky complaints handling and by being slow to apologise and compensate.

An apology late yesterday from BA's chief executive Willie Walsh put an end to the boycott, but the story had already hit a nerve. Readers wanting to berate BA for its surly service and shabby treatment of passengers were evenly matched by those wanting to slam Mr Bell for his arrogance in using a public company to pursue a personal vendetta.

After the Terminal 5 fiasco, BA has a mountain to climb in winning back customer confidence and affection. Being bumped off flights one has booked and paid for is a perennial complaint from passengers. Mr Bell's fury and frustration at the time is easily understandable. But in the cold light of day, a week or two later, to change company policy partly in order to settle a score is something else entirely.

Ladbrokes was keen to stress that as a company it was already unhappy with BA's performance. But there seems little doubt that the Barbados incident was at the very least a factor in triggering Mr Bell's extraordinary edict.

If so, Mr Bell was perhaps guilty of an abuse of power and an error of judgment. At the margin, Ladbrokes might have faced a higher travel bill because of his order.

Many of us will be tempted to applaud him. Individually, when faced with particularly crummy or rude service, we can demand to see the manager, threaten to take our business elsewhere, throw every toy out of the pram, but in our hearts we know it won't make any difference.

Mr Bell's response was on a magnificently grander scale. With one memo, he was able to wipe out £2million of BA's annual revenues. Who wouldn't want that power occasionally when being told by a complaints department recording, “Your call is important to us. Please continue to hold.”?

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