Virgin Blue calls the cops on annoyed customer

[yellow rocket]

Interesting...

Virgin Blue calls the cops on annoyed customer – Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/01/10/virgin-blue-calls-the-cops-on-annoyed-customer/#comments)

[Capn Bloggs]

I can certainly appreciate your comments regarding the AFP being called, however as safety is paramount, should any guest behave in such a manner that the crew feel is disruptive or inappropriate; the Flight Supervisor will always bring the matter to the attention of the Captain so that any appropriate action may be taken.

Despite what the Uni Degrees and text-books (probably) say, a lot of this industry is not "black and white". Situations like these need tact, experience (if no experience lots, of good training), commonsense (which comes from good training and/or experience) and understanding. As the pay goes down, so does the age and life-experience of the players and the training has to go up.

As for control of the cabin and "disruptive pax" it all stops with the person in seat 0A. If the circumstances were anything like as described, I'm disappointed that the cops were called.

[Bootstrap1]

How dare some minion question her authority.

I thought there was a law in this country that required water to be freely available and free of charge where alcohol is being served.

[Oakape]

The comment by stophostyhate was brilliant! Articulate, insightful and to the point, cutting through all the PR spin.

Why don't these people rise to managerial positions instead of some of the crap that does? Because they highlight incompetence, aggravate insecurities & get then blocked at all levels by those people that they have unwittingly threatened. Finally, they usually get sick of beating their heads against the proverbial brick wall & leave.

I only wish Mr Borghetti would read his/her comments.

[Crew rest.]

This all reminds me of the first 10 mins of the movie 'Anger Management' YouTube - Dave Buznik gets a Small Misunderstanding (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMzA6AjFv74). It would be funny except for the seriousness of the incident. I read that a customer who was erroneously accused of shoplifting at a Sydney department store successfully sued the company. Perhaps this passenger should consider the same thing. After all, the passenger has been falsely accused of disruptive behaviour on an aircraft.

The comment by stophostyhate was brilliant! Articulate, insightful and to the point.

I don't agree. Articulate, yes, but lacking insight in the role of cabin crew. I get the image here of a person who loves the industry, except for those pesky passengers. I agree with stophostyhate that the airline should provide free water. However the "unbundled" food and beverage service is exactly what the original Virgin Blue was about. This person then contradicts themselves by suggesting that a return to previous values would be a good thing. Either Virgin should give people free water or not. stophostyhate is not being consistant.

Further:

Did the Crew handle this as best they could? Possibly not, but what were their options?

a. Give the Guest a glass of water and be performance managed, or,
b. Don’t give the Guest a glass of water and be performance managed.


Some lateral thinking would have provided other options. Giving a passenger a glass of water does not automatically result in being "performance managed". Jeez..just give the passenger a paper cup and tell them to help themselves to the tap for chrissake! Needlessly calling the police instead of using some common sense: now that gets you Performance managed.

This Guest also has some questions to answer:

No stophostyhate, the passenger/guest does not have any questions to answer. Not to you or anyone. There is no place for such an attitude in customer relations. It is not the role of airline staff to interrogate passengers. I am sure that stophostyhate's employer spent a lot of effort in training Human Factors and it should be evident that a traveler who is thirsty and has had water taken from them (not all security checkpoint invoke a 100 ml restriction on LAGs. eg: LAX) is not going to be happy. The customer service role look after the passenger-who pays your wage?

Why didn’t you buy water airside after having your water taken prior to boarding, presumably at the security check point?

There could be many reasons for this. Lack of currency for one. Maybe the shop was closed.

- Why, after traveling from Perth to Phuket where water also gets confiscated at the security check point, did you try to breach the 100ml rule?

You cannot expect pax to know the rules for LAGs as thoroughly as airline staff. Last week I saw security take a bottle of water from cabin crew in Sydney. Nobody is perfect.


- Why, after traveling from Perth to Phuket, on a credit card only service, did you complain about not having a credit card for the return journey? How did you pay for your ticket? How did you pay for your hotel? How did you pay for your duty free?

Maybe the passenger maxed out their credit card in HKT. Maybe they lost it. Who knows.

The letter of reply extends an apology for bad customer service on the part of the crew and quite rightly, too. It is the only point in the whole sorry saga where the customer has been extended any justice or due consideration.

[anawanahuanana]

Just a couple of points that may not set the world on fire, but I'll make them anyway.....

1: Last time I was in HKT (as pax) I had my bottle of water removed when entering the terminal through the security point just inside the door. I then bought another bottle which was removed at the main security/passport area. Finally I purchased another bottle in the airside area to take onboard, which was then promptly removed at yet another security bag search at the entrace to the aerobridge, so this person may well have tried to take some onboard only to be thwarted by over zealous security.

2: I'm not sure if HKT is the same, but if a VB aircraft uplifts potable water in DPS it is not suitable for drinking and the tank must be steralised on arrival back into Oz. Maybe this prevented free water being given?

I suspect there is a lot more to this that wasn't written in the pax complaint. After all, nobody mentions the stuff that doesn't show them in the best light when making a complaint.

[Gunger]

Who really cares :rolleyes:

[Cactusjack]

Free glasses of water on DJ flights is obviously not a 'must have', just a 'nice to have'.
As for the flight attendants on this particular flight, they really didn't exercise 'flair' did they !

[cavemanzk]

2: I'm not sure if HKT is the same, but if a VB aircraft uplifts potable water in DPS it is not suitable for drinking and the tank must be steralised on arrival back into Oz. Maybe this prevented free water being given

Yet they allow us to drink this water in tea/coffee?

[Worrals in the wilds]

I thought there was a law in this country that required water to be freely available and free of charge where alcohol is being served.

It's a state law in some states as part of their liquor acts. It's not consistent across the country although IMHO it should be and free water should be available at bars.

[Icarus2001]

Which begs the question, on a VB aircraft where is the liquor licence issued from? On any aircraft for that matter. Would it be Qld as that is head office? In that case do Qld liquor licensing laws apply?

Yet they allow us to drink this water in tea/coffee? After it is heated thereby killing bugs! Noting that water boils at a lower temp at 8000' cabin altitude.

[ga_trojan]

VB tanker potable water from Australia as you can't uplift it from Indo due to the quarantine issues

[psycho joe]

So up to possibly 170+ other pax (guests) were able to accept the fact that their ticket did not include water, blankets, pillows a bottle of Dom or a foot rub. :ugh:

I don't know of an Airline Captain anywhere in the world who would call the police on a pax for simply asking for water. So what really happened? Sounds to me like a Flight attendant was cornered in the rear galley; Aggressive posturing and threatening overtones? :hmm:

The fact that crew had quarantine issues is entirely irrelevant to the complaint and smacks of desperate character assassination. :=

[Worrals in the wilds]

Which begs the question, on a VB aircraft where is the liquor licence issued from? On any aircraft for that matter. Would it be Qld as that is head office? In that case do Qld liquor licensing laws apply?

I think it's somewhere in Civil Aviation legislation, similar as with airport bars where the conditions are specified in the federal Airports Act and the state laws don't apply.

[Capt Basil Brush]

VB tanker potable water from Australia as you can't uplift it from Indo due to the quarantine issues

Not always, on a few occasions potable water has been topped up in DPS by mistake by ground crew. In these cases, a PA is made (or it should be made) to pax advising that there will be no hot drinks, and water from the aircraft taps is not to be consumed. On arrival into Aus, the potable water tanks have to be drained and treated before the next departure.

[VH-Cheer Up]

If a VB aircraft uplifts potable water in DPS it is not suitable for drinking

In that case it's not really potable water, is it, since "potable" means fit for drinking.

When almost all the airline magazines and passenger advice videos include the lines "make sure you drink plenty of water", it's about time airlines were mandated to provide a minimum of 250ml of water per passenger per hour on any flights over say 90 minutes. Consuming water may also be of assistance as part of a DVT prevention protocol. Giving it away might be cheap insurance.

Haven't flown in a heavy for a while but they always used to have water fountains with paper cups in each section near by the toilets. What's happened with that?

[Cactusjack]

Aggressive posturing and threatening overtones? http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/src:www.pprune.org/get/images/smilies/yeees.gif
Sounds to me more like one of the old boilers working for QF mainline than an angry DJ pax !!

[Mr. Hat]

Monumental culture shift required to be a business class player.

[notaplanegeek]

When I read that I don't think the full story has been covered. Id like to hear flight attendants side of the story. But in saying that airline is worried about contamination is more or less saying, "You are going to buy our bottled water and if you don't like it fly with someone else". Flew on a relatively new Emirates A340-500 recently, water stations with cups everywhere.

Dinned out in about 10 restaurants in Melbourne over the NYE period and asked for a glass of iced water at all of them, still they all came through and served me water from the tap.

Now this just makes me think in my whole life how many restaurants have said, "I'm sorry sir you can only buy bottled water for health & safety reasons".... not even one.

Personally I think it is a health hazard not to offer passengers water whether they buy it in a bottle or not due to the humidity in the cabin environment. I wonder how long before some tight-ass passes out because of lack of fluids?

[psycho joe]

Dinned out in about 10 restaurants in Melbourne over the NYE period and asked for a glass of iced water at all of them, still they all came through and served me water from the tap.

Now this just makes me think in my whole life how many restaurants have said, "I'm sorry sir you can only buy bottled water for health & safety reasons".... not even one.



I'm not sure which is worse. That you have spent your life, and new years eve going to restaurants for the shear pleasure of drinking their tap water. Or that you honestly believe that Melbourne tap water is comparable in quality to South East Asian tap water. :ugh:

[fmcinop]

I think there is a hell of a lot more to this story. Police are not called just because a passenger had a disagreement with Cabin Crew.
Love to hear the other side and most probably the more accurate account!

[denabol]

Thing that gets my attention is that the police took no action in this case, so the other side must have been pretty weak. I was at Canberra airport during a 'scene' at the Qantas desk over a year ago and close enough the hear the AFP guy tell a Qantas manager it was a service issue on that occasion and nothing to do with the police.

On that occasion there was a heated disagreement between several passengers and several people at the counter near the baggage check but I never heard what it was really all about.

[captwawa]

Spot on Oakape and Mr Hat

Cultural changes that will take a long time to effect - I think we (VB) will all have to have a think about how we want it to move forward.

It certainly is a different beast since I got on board.

What a waste of AFP time, what is surprising is the fact it got to the point where they were called to the gate. I guess the Captain got a 'beefed' up version of events.

Always two sides to a story though.

[VH-Cheer Up]

@notaplanegeek

Personally I think it is a health hazard not to offer passengers water whether they buy it in a bottle or not due to the humidity in the cabin environment. I wonder how long before some tight-ass passes out because of lack of fluids?

Precisely. Surprising nobody's done something about that. Is Christopher Zinn listening?

[stubby jumbo]

Yawn.......all this PC stuff !:rolleyes:

Bring back to the GOD's.

Strewth when we had stuff like this happening in the late 80's and early 90's on the classics.

We'd just wait 'till the cabin lights were out -then grabbed the old ABC Guide,chucked a blanket over the perpetrator and gave him the old ONE-TWO.:ok:

Game over!

[notaplanegeek]

physcho JoI'm not sure which is worse. That you have spent your life, and new years eve going to restaurants for the shear pleasure of drinking their tap water. Or that you honestly believe that Melbourne tap water is comparable in quality to South East Asian tap water

"over the nye period." Water is water, did you read that in a womans magazine or something? I don't think it is fashionable to drink $3.99 more-expensive-than-petrol 'Pump' water that came from where your tap water came from. :p

@notaplanegeek

Quote:
Personally I think it is a health hazard not to offer passengers water whether they buy it in a bottle or not due to the humidity in the cabin environment. I wonder how long before some tight-ass passes out because of lack of fluids?
Precisely. Surprising nobody's done something about that. Is Christopher Zinn listening?

This is Australia, its only a matter of time.

[psycho joe]

notaplanegeek you're obviously not a traveller either are you?

Drinking tap water in many SE Asian destinations can make you seriously ill or kill you. :uhoh:

I'd suggest that you travel through this part of the world drinking as much tap water as possible. Possibly your headstone could read "water is water". :D

Personally, I think that $3.50 for airline bottled water is a bit steep, but not as steep as organ failure. But you're right this person should have had a choice. :ugh:

[Crew rest.]

More on airlines and police – Plane Talking (http://blogs.crikey.com.au/planetalking/2011/01/11/more-on-airlines-and-police/)

As Ben Sandilands says, it is not a crime to disagree with CC and demand being treated with respect.

[Mr. Hat]

Wait till senior executives start getting on board...

A rude shock is coming.

[Crew rest.]

Top 20 holiday complaints:

A tourist at a top African game lodge overlooking a waterhole, who spotted a visibly aroused elephant, complained that the sight of this rampant beast ruined his honeymoon by making him feel "inadequate".


A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she’d been locked in by staff. When in fact, she had mistaken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

"The beach was too sandy.


A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.


"Topless sunbathing on the beach should be banned. The holiday was ruined as my husband spent all day looking at other women."


"We bought 'Ray-Ban' sunglasses for five euros (£3.50) from a street trader, only to find out they were fake."

"No-one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.


"It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England it only took the Americans three hours to get home."


"My fiancé and I booked a twin-bedded room but we were placed in a double-bedded room. We now hold you responsible for the fact that I find myself pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked."


"I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends' three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller."


"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"


"There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners."

"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white


"We had to queue outside with no air conditioning."

"It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel.

"I was bitten by a mosquito - no-one said they could bite.


"I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."

"It's lazy of the local shopkeepers to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time - this should be banned.


"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."

"We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels.

[Icarus2001]

Wait till senior executives start getting on board...

I am confident that they will receive a different experience. For a start their higher fare inlcudes food, water. drinks, IFE. The CC chosen to serve in the business section will be more experienced, prettier, smell nicer and that is just the boys.

Holiday complaints above...GOLD.