To represent the needs of thousands of surfers who are shocked by the new British Airways (BA) ban on the carriage of surfboards (effective from 6th November), the British Surfing Association (BSA) has set up a petition to lobby the airline to reverse their decision.

The organisation is also urging all surfers to sign up to their new members group on the social networking site Facebook, complain directly to BA and spread the word amongst other surfers. The BSA has over 10,000 members across the country and hundreds of them have contacted the organisation over the past few days expressing their disbelief and anger at BA’s ban on surfboards.

Until now, due to BA’s fair baggage policy, the British surfing teams have almost always traveled with BA to their European and international events but if BA insists on continuing with the ban, all surfers will be forced to use other airlines. A large number of the BSA’s members are based on outlying British islands where BA is the only flight carrier and the new ban will mean they will not now be able to fly with their boards.

Karen Walton, National Director of BSA, says: “If everyone who surfs could take five minutes to go online and follow our recommended action steps then we will have a real representation of the swell of support for the reversal of this decision. The Facebook site already has in excess of 1,000 members and lots of our members have been making complaints to BA. Our new online petition means that people all over the world can add their support to our campaign and can add their personal comments about the issue. We will then be personally delivering the petition to the management at BA in the near future.”

Surfers are urged to take the following steps to help us lobby British Airways to reverse their decision:

1) Go onto www.britsurf.co.uk and click the ‘SIGN ONLINE PETITION OF PROTEST IN THE NEWS SECTION ON THE HOME PAGE’. Follow the easy steps to sign this online petition and add any comments.

2) If you have a Facebook account, join the Facebook ‘British Airways Surfboard Ban’ group

3) Click this link and register a complaint with BA directly

4) Encourage all other surfers to follow these steps