V-Flyer

Hi,

In line with the thread on petty complaints I would like the voice my distaste for those who complain about flights being delayed.
I was recently delayed for about 4 hours (a very short delay if you ask me) because of a safety problem on the plane, which needed to be fixed before the plane could safely fly.
And you would not believe the amount of people that made a fuss and were absolutely horrible to the airline staff.
I mean what did they expect?? would they rather fly on an unsafe aircraft??

I know personaly I would wait as long as need to be sure the aircraft is safe, in fact I would rather they had spent another 4 hours just checking it was fine!!

Why are some people so unreasonable???

Emmylou [:X]

I totally agree with you on that one ELou, however, to say that it doesn't wind me up would be rather untruthful[:(!]

However, being rude to staff and showing your disgruntlement is another matter, after all, it isn't going to get you very far is it?

My main gripe, all the time, is arriving in to LHR or LGW cos you know full well that 99.9% of the time you are going to have to circle for 30 mins or so......now that does get my goat. And even worse, you arrive and then there is no stand, or you have to wait another 30 mins for one to become available!!!!!......Like...HELLO....you know we've been on our way for the last 8 or so hours:D:D

Matt

I know what your saying! However, I find that it is always worse getting the stand the other end (especailly at MCO) at it really winds me up that everyone trys to get their bags from the over heads at the same time when they can't even move of the plane yet!!!
GRRRRRRRRR!

I am a very nice person really!! :D

I don't know that I have that problem Emmylou, is that what goes on behind that curtain??[:p]

well laa-dee-daa!!
May when I am a bit older I will experiance the luxuries of "the otherside"!! [^]

quote:Originally posted by emmylou
well laa-dee-daa!!
May when I am a bit older I will experiance the luxuries of "the otherside"!! [^]

Yeah me too.....

We are talking about the back of the curtain, right?

Thanks,
Richard

I hope so!!!

quote:well laa-dee-daa!!
May when I am a bit older I will experiance the luxuries of "the otherside"!!

Who says you have to be older????? Pleeeeaaasse:D

Matt

Simply because I will (hopefully) stop wasting my money on shoes when I am post 25 and then I can save up for upper class travel!!:D

I've never minded delays especially if they are at the end of the trip as it adds time to your holiday!

one time I gained an extra day as there was a tech problem with the plane!

never understood the 'shoe' thing!
UC like all things is something you dont usually do until your a bit older/wiser!

After all if you've always traveled in Y why would you want to spend more than 4x the amount!

Having said that once to turn left its very hard to fly economy again as you get used to the better service!:D

I can live the dream!

and untill that day comes, at least I have great shoes!!;)

It's like that bloke on the "Don't fly BMI" site - he was delayed for a day because his plane developed a fault! I know the BMI staff were a bit flippant to say "at least it was found on the ground not in the air", but they're right

I experienced my worst delay ever at SMF on my way out to Vegas last week - 2 hours (yeah, I know, I've been very lucky ) - I can see how air rage starts when you keep getting delays, no information and can't even smoke [V]

Personally, I hate having to circle and then wait on the tarmac at LGW or LHR - but I see that more of a reflection of the crowded airspace in England and ATC's inability to manage it better - nothing to do with VS at all, and certainly not getting worked up about

Cheers

Michael

I think it depends on your circumstances how a delay can affect you, if your at the start or end of your only holiday flight its not too bad, you can cope with that.

I flew to St lucia with VS from LGW a few weeks ago, living in Manchester, I flew down the day before using BA from Manchester to LGW, we were delayed for 3 hours, and all we got were announcements on the tannoy from BA every 30 minutes saying there was another announcement in 30 minutes for the delay due to 'operational issues'. The flight was the cancelled after 3 hours, and we were informed that the 2 further flights to LGW from Manchester that day were full, so we were bundled onto a BMI flight to Heathrow (I only found out it was to LHR when I got the boarding card at BMI checkin!!!!, but this flight was delayed as the incoming aircraft it was using had been redirected for this BA flight and not at Manchester!!!, suffice, we departed 5 hours late from Manchester, and then when we got to Heathrow, no BA staff knew about our arrival and need for transport to LGW, so it was a further 3 hours before we were at LGW, after BA sorted out transfer coaches making a 9 hour delay, due to BA imcompetence!

Me and my wife were ok as we were flying on VS the day after and staying overnight at Le Meridien hotel, so all we got was a very long frustrating journey, but travelling to LGW, half the plane was full of people connecting with inter-continental flights, particuarly US & Carribean, I spoke to several couples who were flying to Bermuda to get on Carnival cruise from there, they were due to land at LGW at 11:30, flight out to Bermuda at 16:30 same day, we arrived at LGW at 18:00.... I saw allot of annoyed people at the Le Meridien that night!

And just to add, we got awful support from BA on the delays, Manchester T3 is the domestic terminal, and has very poor facilities for a long delay, at least LGW has lots of shops and bars etc, BA refused to give any refreshments or vouchers for people delayed, and their attitude stunk, I fly BA often through work and luckily have an executive card through work, so I went in the executive lounge and kept bringing down the complimentary drinks and sandwiches/crisps for delayed passengers, you should have seen the customer services faces on the BA desk!!!!

I put all this into a 3 page email to BA earlier in the week, just got a reply, which is a joke, shows you why BA have gone down the pan, even gave them my BA Gold executive details, I'll post the reply here if anyone wants to see it?

Paul.

yeah, I would love to see how they got around that one!!

I have never flown with BA myself, but I do hear a lot of bad stuff about them, I guess they don't really compare to virgin then??!!

Operational issues will affect every airline
how they deal with the delay seems to be how you seperate the men from the boys..

I normally say write to the airline concerned but you did that and werent happy with the response..

Try another airline hmm maybe Virgin;)

It is OK when there is a problem with the plane, but sometimes airlines like AA, when there is not enough people on 1 plane they will just cancel it and put you on the next one without telling you.

I was flying from JFK-BOS (Total flying time = 40 minutes) and I was delayed for 5 hours. No refreshments, no facilities (except the dreadful AC). It would've took less time if I took the coach or train!

I think sometimes there are situations where the airline is at complete fault and the ground handling agent just act in an inappropriate manner.

Look @ CX, if they have delays for > 2 hours, they will wheel out full refreshments, to all pax and will keep all hte pax fully inform of the situation.

I remember once in Kai Tak, they had some technical problem with the plane and they missed the 12:00 curfew. Therefore they paid everyone 2000HKD (= 400AUD!) and also allow them to either sleep in the F Class Lounge or go back home. And also provided full breakfast vouchers and full apologies. Also they provided everyone with International phonecards, fax machines etc......( of course this is back at the PRE-Internet days)

The US market is much more saturated than the UK one
Flight cancellations arent so common here however owerbooking is still an issue.

I agree being bumped off one flight and added to a later one is never good esp if you got a connection to catch
getting good FF status helps as this gives you the chioce in an overbooking situation
My friend always vulenteers as that way he gets cash back and has lounge access so can eat/drink during the delay.

I actually didn't get bumped, the flight was not full enough so they just combine it to a later flight.

I am actually a Gold CX MPO (Saph Oneworld) and I must say from my travelling experience I never got bump OFF a flight before!

quote:

I normally say write to the airline concerned but you did that and werent happy with the response..

Try another airline hmm maybe Virgin

Jonathan

quote:

Hi Jonathan

Well, I did fly VS where I could from LGW to St Lucia, this was the connection with the 9 hour delay!

Maybe next time I goto St Lucia VS will be operating from Manchester to ST Lucia, though reading some of the forum on the routing from Manchester to Florida, I think i'd prefer to fly from LGW as that is more the home of VS with all the facilities.

I accept operational problems happen, its how the airline deals with the problem and passengers, and this is where BA failed miserably, I fly BA with work on full fares, around 9-12 times a year and to be honest, i've never had a delay like this before, BA are normally pretty good on schedules, our delay was caused by the baggage truck crashing into the side of the 737, I wouldn't like to be the driver of that truck! [8D]

Here's the response from BA to my 3 page email detailing the problems :


From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: 16 July 2004 14:03
To: [email protected]
Subject: Customer Relations - Case number: CR002076396

16 July 2004
Mr Paul Clinton

Our Ref: 002076396

Dear Mr Clinton
I am sorry your flight to Gatwick was cancelled.
It is vital for both our customers and our business that we operate our services on time. I know it is small comfort after the event, but you can be sure the cancellation to your flight will be reviewed so that we can improve what we do. I understand that it was the handling of the situation that has upset you the most. In such circumstances we expect our staff to deal with our customers in an
efficient, helpful manner and provide them with refreshments. I regret that your experience did not meet the high standards we set ourselves. In your email, you also mentioned that there was no staff waiting for you and your fellow passengers when you arrived at Heathrow. Please accept my apologies. I can understand how difficult this situation must have been for you and your wife.
Thank you for getting in touch, and for your helpful observations about our service.
I hope both of you will fly with us again soon.
Best regards
Antonette Dsouza
Executive Club Gold


I'm just glad we flew down the day before on our connection, rather than chancing the early morning red eye flight for our connection on the day

We're quite philosophical about the delay, when we flew VS the next day, we were flying PE, and at the boarding gate, our names were called and we were upgraded to full UC in seats 8A & 8C, so that more than made up for all the hastle and was a very enjoable start to the holiday, nice to see how a 'customer focused airline' operates, and shows the BA failings.....

All I've got to do now is convince my company to use VS as the preferred airline, though how i'll manage the routings to France/Germany/Italy and Spain I have no idea

Hi,
Looking at BA's response they didn't seem to offer any compensation other than sorry!

If that is the case that is very poor considering your exec gold!

VS only fly long haul but BMI do many of the European destinations you mention so you can earn miles through them or one of VS's many partners.

BA fly many more routes than VS so I realise for some people its not so easy to switch to virgin.

It's the standard BA 'Thank you for complaining' letter - I've had many of these. If you reply to it your complaint will be escallated but even then you will propably only get vouchers anyway.

Regards

Hi Mitchja

Yeah, I plan to reply to the BA response as I don't think its a worthy reply, we had plans to go into London from LGW in the evening, with the delay and hanging around we decided not to bother as it was getting late, the BA response is very standard and I think due to the nature of the delay and amount of travel myself and my company colleagues do, I deserve a better response.

Paul.

I accept delays due to safety reasons but naturally i do the 'oh for god sake!' thing. Most delays i have had have been fairly short but always in aiports where there is nothing to do but sit and wait.

I think the problem is that we pax feel that we are not being told the whole story. My AA flight was delayed and we were told so at the time we were due to board, so naturally im assuming that they must have known ages ago that the plane wasnt going to be there in time and therefore could have told the pax earlier. Our plane wasnt anywhere near the airport so another had to be brought in, surely we could have been told a little earlier, if so, it would help reduce the pax numbers at the gate too.

We also were not given a reason which, if we were, might have stopped some people complaining. 'Technical difficulties' is used all too often, and i do love it when you get a pilot or engineer ask loudly as to what kind of problem as they will never tell you.

I think that if all airlines adopted a policy to tell pax as soon as they know, and offer better food/drink options for long delays then there would be less unhappy people. But, there will always be people who are not happy whatever is done.

Totally agree that it's far better to suffer a few hours delay rather than having a plane 'break' in mid air.

Couple of years back I suffered a 26 hour delay coming back from JNB following the engine 'exploding' on take off! Some people were unbelievable and resorted to making racist comments at SAA's staff. Now that's when I got angry! I have to say they were excellent - Free hotel room, meals, telephone calls, lounge access (go knows how many G&Ts I'd had by the time we actaully took off)and finally an upgrade. They also compensated us with a complementary flight.

I've concluded that people just really love to moan and complain; I'm sure some people go away determined to find something wrong just so they can complain about it!

These moaners really should take stock and see how lucky they are - there are a lot more things wrong with the world compared to a few hours delay!

Rant over, and soapbox put away;)

Alex