Happy Holidays! This winter the U.K. was once again brought to a standstill by unexpectedly heavy snow in the days leading up to Christmas. This had some knock on effects, mainly because transportation of people and goods were affected and so best laid plans had to be put to rest.
There was chaos at various airports around the country, but London Heathrow came under much criticism for its inability to cope with the situation. On TV one could see people sleeping at the airport terminals hoping to make it home in time for Christmas. What was not reported was how badly prepared the airlines were in coping with the problem. Here I cite just one case where two older people were travelling home to Portugal from Hong Kong via Heathrow on the 19th of December. They were told mid-flight that they would not be able to land in London and that the plane would be diverted to Cyprus for the night, at the very least. To be fair the transit from Cyprus airport to the hotel was well organised and the two passengers felt generally well looked after. They were a bit stressed, understandably, but were comparatively calm in comparison to some other passengers who tried to find information regarding connecting flights via the internet and by asking at hotel reception. The websites for the various airlines provided little information, and some crashed. Some of the passengers did not have access to the internet, or did not know how to use the internet, and had little recourse but to enquire at hotel reception; the hotel receptionist had little information to give as the airline had given her none. The two passengers for Portugal had implicit faith in the airline they were travelling with and were certain that once they got to London things would be OK and were not too worried at this point.
The flight for London did take off on the 20th December from Cyprus and landed in London in the early hours of the 21st of December. Passengers in transit were told to make their way to a hotel in central London by taxi and to reclaim the taxi fare from the airline. This would have been unproblematic if the passengers had enough British pounds to use to take the taxi- at 2 a.m. in the morning, in unfamiliar surroundings, with the help desks full of people, and clothing that was inappropriate for the cold that was awaiting them in the taxi queue, this is actually rather unreasonable and can be called little else but bad customer service. Fortunately the two passengers for Portugal had made friends with some of their fellow travellers and one lady from Manchester, bound for the same hotel, offered to share a taxi with them and to pay for it and reclaim the taxi fare later as she was heading for Manchester by train the next morning and would be able to see to this in the comfort of her own home soon enough.
The two travellers tried to find information regarding their onwards journey to Portugal later on that morning, having been told by the airline that they should call up a freephone number for further information. The phone line was constantly busy and they could not get through; the hotel had no information except that they had to vacate their room at 2 p.m. that day. Having seen on the news on TV that passengers without confirmed flights should not travel to Heathrow, the two passengers were at a complete loss as to what to do. They know yours truly and in desperation, called for help. It took me 4 hours to get through on the phone to someone with information to give- this after trying to check for flight information and to rebook online on their behalves to no avail. As their flight had departed from Hong Kong, their flight intinerary showed them as having used up all their flight bookings even though their last leg had actually been cancelled. This information was not updated and therefore we were unable to rebook their flights until I got through to an airline agent on the phone who then rebooked them on a flight 6 days from when I called. When I asked about accomodation for these passengers in the interim, information was not forthcoming. We eventually were told that the airline would not be booking accomodation for them while they were in London but they could reclaim accomodation costs up to £200 per day on production of a receipt to the airline. Again, the airline made the assumption that this could be easily achieved by their passengers, without any care that older passengers in particular might find this difficult to do, especially since they were in a country they were not familiar with and had not been prepared to visit. It was the run up to Christmas and booking reasonably priced accomodation in London for two was not a simple task. Also they made assumptions about their financial status that they had no right to make. This is poor customer service and not befitting a national airline.
We cannot beat nature but it is all too easy to blame the weather for human insufficiencies. And in this case there were human insufficiencies. The airline should expect loss of custom if they do not recognise this and ammend the way they treat their customers. For now they have lost at least two.
No comments:
Post a Comment