Boris Johnson turned down for upgrade by BA on Beijing flight

London mayor Boris Johnson doesn’t have the best of luck with plane journeys. Yesterday he touched down in Beijing looking – and feeling – frazzled following a gruelling nine-hour journey in "cattle class", after being denied an upgrade to business class by British Airways. City Hall aides are understood to have requested that the mayor be bumped up, but were turned down. A BA spokesman refused to comment or reveal whether the flight had been too full to accommodate the request.

It is not Johnson's first irritation with airport authorities in recent days. When his luggage was delayed at Gatwick earlier this month, he used his Daily Telegraph column to complain that the managers of the airport had a "chimpanzee-like" control over baggage handlers and that the service was worse than that offered by many Third World countries.

On this occasion, however, Johnson brought the problem upon himself when he decided to travel economy in order to score a point over his comfort-loving predecessor Ken Livingstone. The mayor cut the three weeks Livingstone had planned in Beijing to a mere five days and reduced the size of his entourage.

However, the mayor did receive VIP treatment once he landed at Beijing Capital International Airport. He was whisked away in an official car to the five-star Beijing Raffles Hotel. Johnson will have a key role to play in the closing ceremony on Sunday when he receives the Olympic flag from his Beijing counterpart before an estimated worldwide television audience of 1.5 billion – more than a thousand times his Daily Telegraph readership.