If the customer service is the new marketing, this
means many airlines lack marketing at all. I thought that I’m the only
complainer in my surrounding, but after reflecting my “mood” on social
channels, I did understand that it’s a global problem and should be solved
somehow.
I’ve been traveling much recently,
and I already know that US domestic flights almost never depart on time,
accordingly arrivals are also late. You may be lucky a few times, but it’s just
a chance.
Another thing is when you arrive
in the airport and they say that the landed plane is too small and some of the
passengers cannot get on board. “We are sorry, but you can take another flight
tomorrow only”. But do I have that tomorrow at my disposal? And why should I
stay one more day away from family? Yes, this happened to me while travelling
from Bozeman, Montana to LA. And that was United Airlines.
But United is not an exceptional example of a bad service.
When you have multiple flights
with a company, you can use your bonus miles, right? And this is the only reason
I’ve been travelling with Aeroflot for many times. It really used to be a good
company, but what happened to it?
Once I had to wait
three hours on board in New York airport, we even had lunch during this
period - I never had any meal on board before the flight in my life...
Then this happened again, but
with a two-hour delay. But today I started thinking that the world doesn’t like
“Russian airline”, maybe it’s politics? My London flight was also delayed…
But the delays are not the only
reason for my “unmoody”post. Last time one steward made me very angry. Personal
behavior is worse than company’s one, and the steward’s bad service was a slap for
me. In case of flight delays many reasons can be found, sometimes even
reasonable ones, but the crew selection factor is within an airline’s control,
within their customer service obligations.
Imagine sitting in the plane for
two hours waiting for the flight. You cannot sit any more, especially thinking
that after departure you’ll have to sit nine more hours to get to your
destination. I stood a while, and then walked in the direction of the 1st
class. It was 70 percent empty. A steward was approaching from the economy
class… “I’m sorry, can I change my place from the economy class?” was my
question to him. He replied in a very rude way “NO” and left.
I started thinking how impolite
he was, he could have explained me that he had no right to do so, as my ticket
was a cheap one, etc. Although I heard thousand times, that passengers give
some 50-100 dollars to crew members and they change their seats without any
difficulty. Money works everywhere…
Well, I went to my seat. Three hours
later I could think about nothing, but standing. I decided to walk to the lavatory
to stand a bit. A man was sleeping with his feet stretched in the front row. He
was alone in that row, two vacant seats next to him. I sat to stretch my feet
for a while, when I noticed the same “Sergey” passing by. He looked strangely
at me and came back, asking if that was my seat. I explained that I sit next to
the window in the same economy class, next to a fat lady and decided to have
some rest here…
“You should return to your place,
and the sooner, the better”, was his reply. But why? In this case I was in the same
class, I wasn’t disturbing anyone, and I used to change my seat lots of times
with different companies and never had such a bad experience with the crew.
I was more than insulted. Now
when customer service is a priority in every field, for any biz, when we do
speak about exceptional customer service in all the parts of the world, why do
you keep such rude and unfriendly employees, Aeroflot? Why do you put the
company reputation in the hands of such individuals? Why should a steward change
the face of the whole company? Why Aeroflot, why…
