Mike Southern
31st Jan 2003, 13:14
I am a frequent pax and one of my pet topics is accurate information when things ain't going right....
Just a quickie to say that I was impressed with the way I was handled recently at LHR on a flight to Amsterdam. Strong winds on Wednesday for the outbound flight; Check-in staff and lounge staff warned me that there could be a delay of up to an hour, as it turned out this was subsequently brought forward and we landed in AMS more or less on time - great handling of the situation...... no building up of pax's hopes and then dashing them, quite the contrary as it happened - everybody happy!
As for yesterday afternoon... difficult circumstances for all airlines, loads of angry pax. I was put on a (delayed) earlier flight and when I tried to get on an even earlier flight (even more severely delayed) the lovely lady at the gate 'suggested' that I was better off on the delayed 1545h flight - which actually left before the 'earlier' one (am I making any sense here???). I actually departed more or less on my original scheduled departure time - a stunning achievement under the circumstances.
Anyhow, a fine example of how to manage expectations well under difficult circumstances; good on ya BMI.....
OK it wasn't all a fairy story.... we got stacked over London for more than an hour and then parked off-stand for another 40 mins, but such things are outside the airlines control.
Ho hum, Brussels next week and Koln the one after......
Just a quickie to say that I was impressed with the way I was handled recently at LHR on a flight to Amsterdam. Strong winds on Wednesday for the outbound flight; Check-in staff and lounge staff warned me that there could be a delay of up to an hour, as it turned out this was subsequently brought forward and we landed in AMS more or less on time - great handling of the situation...... no building up of pax's hopes and then dashing them, quite the contrary as it happened - everybody happy!
As for yesterday afternoon... difficult circumstances for all airlines, loads of angry pax. I was put on a (delayed) earlier flight and when I tried to get on an even earlier flight (even more severely delayed) the lovely lady at the gate 'suggested' that I was better off on the delayed 1545h flight - which actually left before the 'earlier' one (am I making any sense here???). I actually departed more or less on my original scheduled departure time - a stunning achievement under the circumstances.
Anyhow, a fine example of how to manage expectations well under difficult circumstances; good on ya BMI.....
OK it wasn't all a fairy story.... we got stacked over London for more than an hour and then parked off-stand for another 40 mins, but such things are outside the airlines control.
Ho hum, Brussels next week and Koln the one after......