Brian's Place

If all else fails, enjoy complaining!

I hope eventually to compile a collection of great complaints sent in by people reading this page... but in the meantime, here's one of my own to fill in with.

The Air Journey From Hell

This was a letter that I wrote to the customer relations department of a package holiday company, whose name I am kindly suppressing.

Dear Sir,

My wife and I recently had an extremely pleasant holiday on Lake Maggiore, staying at the Hotel Cannero. However our experience of the airline (particularly on the outgoing leg) was sufficiently bad that we feel you should know what we went through, and why we think that your use of this airline is totally inconsistent with the quality of your otherwise excellent organisation.

I should begin by explaining that my wife and I both have demanding jobs, and we feel that we really need our holidays. On this particular occasion my wife was recovering from an illness, and the holiday was intended to be part of the cure. Also, we appreciate that some of the incidents we relate were relatively minor in themselves, and not all of them were under the control of the airline concerned, but the cumulative effect was considerable. Given a different approach by the airline the incidents would not have mattered nearly so much, and it is their approach that we are really complaining about.

Our outgoing flight was EAF 3222, on 6th July, from Gatwick to Milan. Originally the flight had been earlier, but you had advised us of a change of airline and flight, the result being a revised scheduled departure of 17:30, arriving Milan 20:20. This change was in itself very unwelcome, as it would result in a late arrival at the resort and deprive us of one evening meal at the hotel. We obtained a small financial recompense for this via our travel agent.

On arrival at Gatwick, we suffered a couple of minor irritations at the check-in. We were advised that there was a previously unheard-of (and very low) weight limit on items of hand luggage, which meant that my small flight bag containing a folding umbrella, a modest camera plus extra lens, a light-weight shaver and a couple of books was considered overweight, and I had to repack some items. Then we were asked the usual questions about electrical items in luggage. I remembered that my wife had packed a newly-purchased second-hand camera in one of our 3 cases, and since this had a battery and could be considered to be electrical, I told the check-in person about that. He said we would have to have all our bags X-rayed. When I asked out of curiosity why we had to have all 3 cases X-rayed, instead of just the bag with the camera, his response was to say: “Well, how do we know you packed the camera in the case you said you did?” Thinking that we needn’t have mentioned the camera at all, we complied cheerfully enough with the regulations, which of course are in our interests, and made the short detour to re-check our bags.

The 17:30 departure was initially delayed for what now seems like the inevitable minimum 30 minutes for cheap flights. The plane was a somewhat scruffy-looking old BAC-111 (by which I mean that the paint on the leading edge of the tail-plane had been worn away). The plane had barely begun to reverse from the stand when it stopped, and the pilot announced that a safety device had failed in one engine (his explanations using a car engine and gearbox as an analogy were incomprehensible), and that an attempt would be made to reset it. Time passed, and then we were told that unfortunately a spare part would be required and none was available, and that we would have to disembark and return to the terminal. However, we would have to wait a little longer in the plane while transfer passes were organised.

Back in the satellite terminal, we waited some considerable time for information at the departure gate. By this time we were feeling quite tired and stressed, and we were beginning to wonder what we would feel like by the time we eventually arrived, whether we would have to sleep at Gatwick, or whether we would just have to sit in the terminal until the plane was fixed. Eventually we were told only that we now had to return to the main departure lounge, and collect “meal vouchers”. The girl at the gate couldn’t tell us whether we would get off that night, or any other information.

We were hungry as well as tired, so we were looking forward to at least a good meal, since it was obviously going to be a very long time until we would get on the plane, if at all that night. Our first serious complaint is that the vouchers were for a mere £5 each. This is a completely inappropriate level of recompense for a long delay, particularly at this time of the evening. I enclose a bill for the modest meal which we actually had, which came to £26.40 for the two of us, of which the vouchers only paid £10.

Before we had the meal, the fire alarms were set off in the departure lounge (due to a hoax or minor incident not requiring evacuation), and rang for about 15 minutes, which seemed a very long time. If you have heard these alarms go off you will know that this is not a soothing experience. Of course this was nothing to do with the airline. (However, we wondered if it was really necessary to ring the alarms for so long after it had been determined and announced that there was no serious problem.) My wife was beginning to feel quite poorly by this point.

The screens eventually showed a new departure time of 23:15. There was no announcement, and no information given to us when we asked the people in the information centre in the departure lounge. We tried to get some rest on the seats in the lounge. As 22:45 approached and went, and the screen information still showed a departure time of 23:15, the passengers (including ourselves) began to get quietly annoyed with the people at the information desk, who insisted that they could tell us nothing. We insisted that they should ring someone and find out. Eventually we were given information to the effect that the engine had been repaired and we would shortly be boarding.

More time went by, and the screen still did not change. Then, without warning, it changed from “Delayed 23:15” to “Flight Closing”, which normally indicates your last chance to get on the aircraft - and we were some distance away from the satellite. After a fast walk and a trip on the transit, we arrived at the gate in the satellite terminal to find no-one manning the desk, the plane outside on the tarmac with no lights on, and mechanics obviously still working on the engine, whose cowling was open.

So we still had no information, and just had to wait. Eventually a grim-faced woman (I can sympathise with her feelings, but she made no attempt to be pleasant to the waiting customers, who were sitting patiently and not complaining) turned up to man the desk, but there was still no new information.

When we finally boarded the aircraft, around midnight, the pilot gave us a long and again incomprehensible explanation about the failure in the engine, involving an analogy with a car and clutches and gearboxes, neither of which are well-known components of jet engines. He explained that it was a component “designed to fail”, perhaps not a good choice of phrase, and that they had had to get a new part delivered from Southampton, following which it had to be installed and the engine tested. He asked us not to be hard on the stewardesses, who had had a long day, and had only managed to get a couple of hours lie-down in the hotel (there were some audible adverse reaction from the passengers at this point, none of whom had been making any kind of fuss, and certainly not to the stewardesses who were very unlikely to have been responsible for the engine failure - and we didn’t think that the engineers fixing the engine late on a Sunday night were having a barrel of laughs, either). He did not apologise for the delay or inconvenience, nor did anyone else on the aircraft. It was not until we eventually disembarked in Milan that one stewardess murmured timidly “Sorry about the delay” in my ear, which was the first time the word “sorry” was used; and I can only tell you that I had the distinct impression that she was flouting her airline’s policy by so doing.

The final straw, from a PR point of view, was that we had to pay to buy even soft drinks on the aircraft. I find the habit of charging for drinks on cheap flights very irritating at the best of times; providing at least one free drink per passenger would speed up service, improve PR, and would add nothing noticeable to the cost of the holiday. We didn’t get these drinks until after 00:30, and when I observed to the stewardess that a 6½ hour delay would surely merit at least one complimentary drink, she agreed and told me that the stewardesses thought so too - but “weren’t allowed”.

We were much too tired to eat on the plane, even if we had wanted to. We couldn’t sleep, though, the bright lights and an endless series of loudspeaker announcements at ear-piercing volume saw to that. Our enthusiasm for buying duty-free goods at 01:45 was fairly low.

We arrived in Milan airport around 3am local time. It was deserted (apart from one grumpy passport official who spent an average of over 30 seconds on each passport, which may not sound much but I can assure you that it felt like it in the circumstances). We were stressed and exhausted, and very gloomy about what we would find when we emerged in the arrival area. Would we have to wait until dawn before ringing the hotel?

At this point, everything changed. The [holiday company] courier was waiting with a handful of other passengers. He was smiling, charming and managed to convey that there was absolutely nothing he liked doing better than driving us for several hours in the small hours of the morning. He probably didn’t get to bed himself until at least 6am. If you have any kind of medal or award for such a person, please award it to him - he really deserves it. He epitomised everything which the customer interface for an organisation should be, and everything which the airline was not.

The staff at the Hotel Cannero, without exception, were equally helpful, friendly and charming - I don’t think I have ever stayed at a hotel with nicer people. The resort and hotel lived up to its description in every way and we thoroughly enjoyed it. [You can read a description of that holiday here.] Only the prospect of being once again exposed to that airline cast a shadow over our final days.

In fact, our return flight was relatively painless. It was, of course, the obligatory half hour late, but that was nothing. We had a plague of mosquitoes in the aircraft, who all seemed to board at Milan (I am serious), and for the first 10 minutes of the flight the passengers and stewardesses were still swatting them; but this was also relatively minor. The food was possibly the most tasteless and unappetising I have ever had in a life-time of flying - the main constituent being a dry, bland “Shepherd’s Pie” which reminded me of hospital, the other constituents being a whole-wheat roll, a pat of margarine (no cheese), and a sort of Mr Kipling mini-pie in a foil cup. But after wonderful Italian food, would we have appreciated even something half-way decent? Even the ear-piercing announcements were bearable - we were shortly about to get off the plane, never to knowingly use this airline again.

I should say again that the incidents themselves on the outward flight are not really what were are complaining about. Mechanical failures happen, although it is possible that less than ideal routine maintenance could have contributed to this particular case. It is the extremely poor consideration shown to passengers, the lack of information, courtesy and common PR sense, which seem to us to be totally inconsistent with the [holiday company] image.

We have used [the holiday company] 4 times, and have enjoyed each holiday very much. However we will seriously have to think about not using your company in the future, if the air travel part of the holiday is to be conducted by this particular charter company.

Can you assure us that this aspect of your holidays will improve in the future? And would you kindly send a copy of this letter to the airline concerned?

Many thanks.

I got a less than satisfactory reply, and the holiday company received no more of our custom. But heck - it was fun writing it.