Airlines and Bad Treatment
I just head a story about an airline that decided to cancel a flight because the waiting passengers were angered by the fact that the crew showed up late. This just reinforces what I have been suspecting as of late. Customer service is a thing of the past and the airlines have lost their minds.
I have a friend who was flying recently with United Airlines and had several delays, missed flights, one arrival that was so late it cut back on his business trip, and one flight that was so late that he had to cancel the business.
On the last actual flight that he did get on, he was to fly to San Francisco International and connect with a flight going to Portland. Both flights were late, but the flight he was on that he actually arrived hours (yes plural) late.
The airline formed a line at a counter staffed with only two personnel for all of the people who had missed connecting flights and began the grueling task of going through the disgruntled “would be” passengers two at a time. Around that same time two other flights arrived just as late and added more people to the line.
From there he noticed that the airline just booked people for the next day and gave them nothing to eat, no place to sleep (they all slept on airport chairs or the floor unless they paid for their own hotel room) no cab, no blanket, no nothing except the little bag with toothpaste and soaps.
My buddy tried to call the airline and immediately knew that he had been transported to the world of outsourced phone centers. He was bounced around, stalled, hung up on several times (“accidently”), argued with, and finally hung up on after hours so he could not call back. He called back two days later and went through the exact same process except the staff was far ruder.
When all else failed he tried the U.S. offices and spoke to fussy domestic staff who simply referred him back to the same number.
Finally my friend got frustrated and searched out the email address of the C.E.O. of United Airlines and sent him an email.
When all was said and done (there was more than what is listed here) he finally received an email that said they were sorry but they could give him a voucher for one-hundred dollars (which is barely enough to park at the airport at current rates) or five thousand frequent flyer miles (which will fly him exactly………..zero miles)
On a trip he had booked with three destinations and with stopovers for most flights only one flight was on time. He had to sleep in the airport. He didn’t get to complete his business. He spent two days on the phone with rude employees and being hung up on and this is what they give him.
United Airlines has gone to new lows in customer service and is sinking fast into worse customer service.
There needs to be a way to fight back against this poor treatment of passengers. There has to be some way to force these people to consider changing these terrible business practices.
Periodically there is talk of the government stepping in and regulating how this industry is run. Due to the bad service my friends and I and stories like the one today, I am convinced that that is a need or the industry is going to fall into more turmoil and we will suffer with this sort of terrible service.
