Why is it that posts dealing with airlines always point out the "problems"?
We flew Dallas to Rome this week. Five days before our departure, American Airlines emailed us to say that they had upgraded our seats as requested.
On August 22nd, we checked in at DFW and began boarding 30 minutes prior to the scheduled take-off time. Before we began to taxi to the runway, the pilot informed us of a mechanical problem and said there would be a delay. An indicator light for possible engine overheating was not working properly. The 15 minute delay turned into 1 hour and 15 minutes, but we did finally take off with everything working properly on the airplane. Better safe than sorry.
We arrived at JFK with only 20 minutes to change not only gates, but also terminals for our flight to Rome. Several airline personnel were courteous to help us with directions. We arrived at the Rome departure gate to find that we were about the last passengers to board. Our seats were waiting, along with a glass of champagne.
The flight and flight crew were very nice - even a decent meal. We arrived in Rome 15 minutes ahead of schedule at 7:00am. We had no anticipation of our baggage making the connection, and were pleasantly surprised to find it all waiting for us in Rome.
We had leased a new Peugot through Auto Europe, but the leasing office for Peugot did not open until 9:00am. Again, we were pleasantly surprised to find a representative from Peugot waiting on us - sign in hand. He had opened the office early for us when he had seen our early arrival time.
So, a very nice trip with no problems. Not the type of post usually found, but we thought we brighten someone's day with a positive story.
Originally posted by Bill & Patty Sutherland: So, a very nice trip with no problems. Not the type of post usually found, but we thought we brighten someone's day with a positive story.
Have a read through our trip reports - there you will find details of trips that went well. People usually post on the message board when they run into problems and want to warn people or seek advice on how to do better next time. www.slowtrav.com/tr/
Originally posted by Bill & Patty Sutherland: .....Five days before our departure, American Airlines emailed us to say that they had upgraded our seats as requested......
We arrived at JFK with only 20 minutes to change.......We arrived at the Rome departure gate to find that we were about the last passengers to board. Our seats were waiting, along with a glass of champagne.
ahhhh, the advantages of flying first class....if only it were possible.....
With all the apprehension about air travel in these troubled times, we just wanted to let everyone know that more often than not, the international flights go very smoothly and even with close connection times, nearly all baggage does arrive on time. Even the lines for inspecting baggage went very quickly. Patty was taken aside and her hand luggage inspected - turns out what they had seen in the xray was something that was "triangular and could be sharp". It was the metal label on a Prada cosmetic bag - we wonder if Prada will rethink their logo? The inspector also went through the cosmetic bag, giving no comment to a tube of lip balm she had.
Barb & Art - American Airlines cut out their 1st class on flights to Italy - now their best service is business - and yes, it is nicer than coach. We have flown American Airlines exclusively for 20 years and that is one of the reasons they are good to us with upgrades.
Barb & Art - American Airlines cut out their 1st class on flights to Italy - now their best service is business - and yes, it is nicer than coach. We have flown American Airlines exclusively for 20 years and that is one of the reasons they are good to us with upgrades.
Yes, I'd 'settle' for business class any day! Unfortunately we can't seem to find the one perfect airline for us...first it was NWA, but you have to change in Amsterdam most of the time, and I absolutely want a direct U.S. to FCO flight. On top of that the NWA staff just got really, really mean, so we weren't too sad to leave. Then we tried Delta, just once I think, but since my son has been stationed in Tampa, USAir gives us the best price, so for the last few times we've flown USAir.
It is nice (and rather surprising!) to hear that an airline actually APPRECIATES loyalty and their customers! Good for you!
Ah, another Virgin Atlantic horror story. We had one of our own last year, when our scheduled flight took three days to leave Boston, and Virgin held our bags hostage and lied to us. Details here.
This just confirms my resolution NEVER to fly Virgin again. They may do okay if there are no problems, but they can't deal with unexpected situations. They seem to subscribe to the mushroom theory of customer relations: "Keep them in the dark and feed them s***."
Barb, we have managed to upgrade to Business Class on every flight to Europe in the last 7 years. I always upgrade with miles. You can collect miles with your AMEX card and dump them into that program they have, then move them to different airline programs before booking. Join the mileage clubs for each airline that you fly and be sure to collect miles for your flights.
It works best to have one or two airlines that you always use. When we were with Delta, if we did two flights to Europe per year, then another in the US, we were at their medallion status and it was easy to get upgrades. We switched to British Airways last year and I am managed to have enough miles to upgrade with them.
You do enough flights I think to get to the level where upgrading is easier - similar to Bill S.
Bill do you upgrade with miles or do you fly enough that they give complimentary upgrades?
Bill and Patty, Why? It's called empathy. For other passengers who actually had to go through something we fear but have experienced on a smaller scale. It's bad enough to worry about takeoff and landing but to sit on a plane that does not move for an inordinate period of time because "something's wrong" -- and sort of thinking maybe it'd be best not to be on the plane, the happy ending can be when, as in this case, passengers get off it.
My worst experience was not this bad, but it brought a lot of anxiety. This story was just MIND-boggling what those people went through, and I hoped it would entertain others. I think what they went through matters (customer service is important), and mainly my eyebrows kept jumping with each paragraph, imagining going through that.
Most of us have had good experiences. And already have spoken of them. I talked about the great food and care on KLM. That would have raised eyebrows too ;-) But good trips are common enough that we wouldn't be writing about them much, or the message board would sink with the weight.
ROZ! re your own awful experience. I love your photo essay. Laughed out loud when I saw the photo "Virgin's idea of customer service: An empty desk with an 800 number that is always busy" (that photo is eloquent) and the photo of a service phone being picked up by another passenger to commiserate with another passenger :-) Good job!
Roz - that is a harrowing story. I am so glad you posted it here and on your website. That airline needs to be outed, and I, for one, will never ever use them. Your list is so chock full of good advice that I printed it out for future reference, because, you never know. A lesson in futility and frustration!
I think that if we, as travelers, don't report on bad customer service (no, that's too kind - HORRENDOUS would be the better description), then we are letting these guys off the hook too easily, and they can continue to get away with it over and over. Isn't there any sort of quality assurance that goes on in the airline industry? Are there no repercussions to either the airline or the airport for incidents like what happened to Roz and what Andrys shared?
If not, that is pretty pathetic. It is incumbent then upon the travelers like us to "out" these incidents so that more people can be educated and aware consumers.
You know, anyone can have a bad experience flying, and often things are out of control of the airlines. So if someone has a problem with lost luggage, delayed flights, or the occasional rude airline staff person, to me that wouldn't be sufficient reason to condemn the airline forever.
But what really bothered me most about our Virgin Atlantic experience was the way the airline's policy seemed to be to blow off the customers, or at least to be completely unresponsive. We did encounter a few Virgin reps during our bad experience who were doing their best to be helpful. One of them actually gave us some advice more or less on the sly that could have gotten her in trouble if the airline had known what she was telling us.
So I do not fault the Virgin personnel as individuals, and I realize that our problem started with something out of the airline's control (weather). But through all three days that we were at the airline's mercy, I felt that anyone who was trying to help us was doing so more or less on their own initiative and Virgin just didn't care whether their customers were taken care of.
More proof of this was that I never even received the courtesy of a reply to the letter I wrote to Virgin after the experience. You can read the letter on my web site, and see that it was not overly emotional, but simply described in detail the experience we had. I have almost never written to a company with a complaint and not even received some kind of stock response.
Also, while I was eventually reimbursed by my travel insurance for the cancelled trip, this took months because Virgin kept ignoring my calls, letters, and faxes requesting documentation required by the insurance company.
Pauline - for international flights, we do have to use mileage to upgrade. For domestic flights, American Airlines issues "stickers" based on mileage flown which allows us to upgrade on most domestice flights at no charge and no mileage.
We are fortunate that we usually have a window of time in which to make flight arrangements - thus we look for which day will be best for upgrades.
quote:
Why? It's called empathy.
We have each flown 1.5 million miles over the last 20 years with American alone - so we can tell all sorts of "horror" stories, but we choose not to. We are just happy to get to our destinations safely.
There are about 30,000 flights each day in the USA alone. Although most all flights go as planned, we know there are some that do not. We have watched as passengers became beligerent over mechanical and weather problems - we have seen passengers call the police when their baggage did not arrive - we have had our fair share of non-caring airline employees.
We all have a choice in how we react to difficult situations and we just choose to look for the positive aspects in all of life's challenges - it tends to keep keep our blood pressure down and helps with our perspective to life.
Originally posted by Bill & Patty Sutherland: We all have a choice in how we react to difficult situations and we just choose to look for the positive aspects in all of life's challenges - it tends to keep keep our blood pressure down and helps with our perspective to life.
Just because someone posts on a message board about a bad experience, does not mean they have have a negative outlook on life or they do not have perspective on the incident. We are just sharing our airline stories. This is not a contest as to who lives the most well-adjusted life; just a place to talk about what happened and maybe get some sympathy and advice.
Topic Closed
.
