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REX, better than all airlines in Australia and most of the world

Dr Thorburn's Letter

Quote:

Dr Charles Thorburn, who has been travelling from Sydney for more than 20 years to conduct an outpatient clinic at Griffith hospital, was so incensed with the declining service of the Griffith-Sydney flights he wrote a complaint letter to Rex chairman Lim Kim Hai.30th May 2012

Mr Lim Kim Hai
The Managing Director
Regional Express Holdings Limited
PO Box 807
MASCOT NSW 1460

Dear Sir
I wish to complain about the service provided by Regional Express to Griffith in particular.
For about 20 years now I have been providing a cardiology outpatient service at Griffith Hospital on a Friday.
Over the years there has been a deterioration in the reliability of the service and the ability of REX to inform its passengers and provide reasonable alternatives for getting customers back to Sydney.
On Friday May 25, having flown down to Griffith on the morning flight, we arrived at the airport for the last afternoon flight back to Sydney.
It turned out that the plane was stuck at Narrandera. Information for this was provided by passengers who received mobile calls from customers on the flight from Narrandera.
Eventually we were informed by the ground staff at Griffith that the plane needed repairs and that engineers were being flown out from Wagga to Narrandera and in the meantime we should go on a bus to Narrandera.
Why this decision was made remains a mystery.
When we got to Narrandera the plane was still not operational but eventually it was thought to be safe, although the alternative plane was considered only fit to fly engineers and not passengers.
In any case the plane took off with the stranded Narrandera passengers and flown to Griffith.
An hour later the plane returned but was unable to land for a quarter of an hour and when it finally did so was stuck on the runway.
After another hour or so the plane was moved off the runway, further work was done on it. All this time we were provided virtually no information.
By about 10 o'clock we were told that we could be bussed back to Griffith but there was no guarantee when a plane would be available to take us back to Sydney in the morning.
We decided to get a taxi to Wagga and acatch the early morning flight from Wagga. The REX official assured us that the flights would be changed to the Wagga flight (658) and we would have no problems getting on that early morning flight.
There were about 28 people stranded in Narrandera without food; with some reluctance the REX official at Narrandera ordered us some pizzas and three were delivered to feed 28 people.
We finally arrived in Wagga by taxi ($250.00) extremely hungry at 1 o'clock in the morning and were fortunately able to get a hotel room for a few hours.
When we got to the airport at Wagga in the morning we found that our seats had not been transferred and the girl there required half an hour of trying to find out whether they had been and then spent another half an hour manually entering us for the boarding pass.
We finally arrived back in Sydney on Saturday morning.
It is my experience now over 20 years trying to provide a service to country New South Wales that the REX service has deteriorated dramatically.
Furthermore information provided and decisions made about how to compensate for malfunctioning planes is totally unsatisfactory.
I have serious doubts whether I am going to continue to fly to Griffith. Unfortunately there does not seem to be any competition flying to Griffith and I suspect that is why the service is so poor.
I would be grateful for documentation of how frequently the service to Griffith arrives on time and how often flights are significantly delayed and/or cancelled.
I would also like documentation as to whether Friday is worse than other days because my only alternative is to move my flights and clinics to another day.
My out of pocket expenses were:
Hotel room $205.00
Taxi $250.00.
Yours sincerely
Charles W. Thorburn

Rex Response

Quote:

Dr Charles Thorburn is not satisfied with the response he received from Regional Express's managing director, Lim Kim Hai.
Dear Mr Thorburn

My Chairman Lim Kim Hai has received your letter dated 30 May 2012 and has instructed me to respond as follows:

1. Rex is not perfect and occasionally we do have failures of equipment and service standards. We are not proud of this and we are truly sorry to have caused any inconvenience to anybody.
2. That being the case, we think we are still much better than all the airlines in Australia and most of the airlines in the world.
3. Your entitlement to compensation is governed by our conditions of carriage which you have accepted. In this case you are not entitled to anything. If, as you say, you find the conditons unsatisfactory, why did you accept them in the first place? I would be curious to know if you would reimburse any of your patients who do not get well after seeing you? If you don't, why not?
4. We are not providing you with the statistics you are requesting for. Perhaps in the medical profession you are used to dispensing information on how long you make your patients wait or how often you misdiagnosed.
5. I am not aware of any particular pattern of cancellations/delays. If this could be foreseen in advance believe me it would not have happened.

Regards
Irwin Tan
GM Corporate Service

Looks like their PR is worse than their reliability

If that's how they treat their customers how do they treat their staff?

Also, sorry, but it does look like Charlie didn't read the terms on his ticket

j3

This shouldn't end here. Rex have a very bad record as far as I'm concerned because of their monopoly. I have a similar story, but being a pilot was cognizant of the possible end result of a faulty aircraft and a faulty pilot. Let me get my facts and return with all the lame duck letters and I'll add to this tomorrow.

Dr Thorburn is one of many specialists who service the bush and, for instance, when the Nephrologist doesn't make it from RPAH, schedules booked 12 months in advance go horribly wrong. And stuff the terms written in small print on the ticket.

The level of arrogance towards our "Bread and Butter" is truely breathtaking! :(

That is a very unprofessional response. It was unnecessarily antagonistic particularly points 2,3, and 4.

We all know (and must accept) that aviation will always be affected by delays and it is printed in the terms and conditions, however the tone of that response was just wrong.

Rex needs our Livvy:rolleyes:

Way to go with the slash and burn. Was that a 'real' response or a wind up?

Surely it was a wind up.

Yes, Rex is a monopoly on some routes, but it is hardly their fault. If no one else steps up then the service you get is the service you get.

They haven't used their power to remove competitors from any routes. No one else wants them. Hardly their fault.

A few towns in South Australia would beg to differ with your point Starts with P. Kingscote and Mt Gambier being the most recent. :{

I intend to repay the favour to Rex in my current operation, but thats a by the by!! :ok:

It is just appalling customer relations. I have no dog in this particular fight fight, but how hard would it be to respond to the Doctors letter with something like the following.

My Chairman Lim Kim Hai has received your letter dated 30 May 2012 and has asked me to extend his apologies and has instructed me to respond as follows:

1.Occasionally we do have failures of equipment and this has a knock on effect across our network. Safety is paramount to us and unfortunately delays and cancellations are sometimes unavoidable. We are are truly sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. Mr Lim Kim Hai has requested a review of how this matter was handled by our ground crew with a view to making improvements where necessary.
2.Your entitlement to compensation is governed by our conditions of carriage which you have accepted when purchasing a ticket. In this case compensation is not applicable under our conditions of carriage.
3.We will not be providing statistics specific to our Griffith service however if we are pleased to direct you to the following link
www.rex.com.au/.../304_MR%2020120221%20- ...
which shows Rex as having the lowest cancellation rate of any airline in Australia for the 2011 year at 0.4% for which we are justifiably proud and an On Time Departure Rate of 84.9%. I assure you Rex will continue to work hard to further improve these statistics.
5. I am not aware of any particular pattern of cancellations/delays. If this could be foreseen our policy is to contact our passengers in advance to lessen any inconvenience.

We appreciate your taking the time to contact us and again apologise for the delays in this particular flight. We will continue to work hard to provide high quality Air Transport to our customers throughout the regional areas we service.
Regards
Irwin Tan
GM Corporate Service

Anyway that is how I would of responded but alas I am only a dumb overpaid pilot, not a highly qualified and well paid management type.

Good luck to you boys and girls at Rex.

Quote:

Mr Lim Kim Hai
The Managing Director
Regional Express Holdings
Limited
PO Box 807
MASCOT NSW 1460

If you have dealt with this guy then you will find the original thread posted to be very believable. He isn't the easiest guy to deal with!

Thats disgusting. Glad I dont work there.

Wonder why Rex didnt get another aeroplane to Griffith to pick those pax up?
Unfortunately they have a monopoly on that route.Wrong attitude!

That about sums up what it's like working for REX. It is always the way of the Chairman, as he knows best, ALWAYS...

It never matters what kind of logic there is to your argument, if it does not agree with the view of LKH, then you're simply wrong...

Quite right to expose this level of PR ineptitude. I must say that I recieved a similarly arrogant letter in 2002 from QF regarding the Qlink service between SYD and Tamworth-again, a monopoly service

To write a letter to a customer in today's climate shows once again that they have no idea. They are seriously living in a fantasy up in Singapore if they believe that Rex is as good as they think it is. Maybe LKH should do a road trip down to Moruya and have a chat to the people down there who would rather drive to Canberra and catch a Qlink flight to Sydney than go with Rex. What a disgrace! :yuk:

Look who owns the show. They are "the master race".