Air travel was once considered a luxury. A plane ticket included the ultimate in customer service. Today, major delays, overbooked flights and an endless list of extra fees have some customers reaching a breaking point, swearing off some airlines for good, writes WOLE SHADARE
Flying as an airline passenger is an often-memorable experience, but there are times the experience is memorable for all the wrong reasons, from mechanical problems, poor service, bad food to missing luggage, or any other form of loss for the passenger.
If one experiences this kind of problem with an airline, he may want to deal with it by lodging a complaint with the airline or to one of the authorities that oversee air transportation. Once upon a time, the Nigerian airline industry was a service industry.
Airlines competed with one another based on their relative superior customer service. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Airline travel has evolved from being a true service to becoming a mere commodity, based on price. Because of price elasticity, passengers will disregard poor customer service and flock to the airline with lower fare.
Indeed this has caused many fare wars. One never sees a service war anymore. What has become a unique characteristic of Nigerian airlines, according to passengers who spoke to New Telegraph, is the extent these airlines go in defending their shortcomings and services, which are below required standard.
They even go as far as citing inadequacies that happened in other climes in trying to defend their shortcomings, but can never acknowledge their mistakes, which explains why they do not make any improvement.
Knowing the rules
As a customer, when you purchase a ticket, you and the airline have entered into a contract that covers many different situations that you may face during a flight. Each airline has a specific set of guidelines that are used for situations such as flight delays and overbookings, as well as for lost or damaged luggage.
What you will face will depend on the airline’s policies and where you are flying. For example, you can expect that transportation policies will be different between your cheap flight to Las Vegas and your overseas flight to London. The first flight might be with a discount airline that only provides the minimum required by the appropriate civil aviation regulations, while the airline behind the international flight may go well beyond the minimum requirements to keep a customer from considering a competing airline.
Dealing with a problem
Whenever you can identify a problem on the spot, your best option will usually be to bring it to the airline’s attention and give them a chance to resolve the issue. If you are at the airport, then contact the airline’s customer service representatives, a manager, or some other employee who has the authority to immediately take care of your problem.
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If you are in flight, then contact the head flight attendant. For example, if you are involuntarily bumped from your flight due to overbooking, you are typically eligible for some kind of compensation from the airline. If the airline makes an offer that is acceptable, take it. If not, make a counter request.
If you and the airline can’t come to an agreement on the counter offer, and it can’t be resolved on the spot, document your experience, gather relevant information from the airline, and prepare to file a formal complaint.
Understanding situation
The contract between a pasenger and an airline covers many different situations faced during a flight. These include situations that are common sources of complaints such as cancelled fights and missing luggage. No matter the source complaint, effort should be made to get documentations that provide details of the agreement.
This is typically available from the gate agent or customer service office at the airport. While it may not answer all of your questions, it may tell you key bits of information such as what specific aspects of the agreement that have not been met or the address to lay the complaint.
Keep in mind that any complaint involves a potential civil or criminal lawsuit, necessitating a professional legal advice going forward. If it does not rise to that level, then the passenger can deal directly with the airline.
In-flight meals
Ranging from their poor appearances to the way they interact with passengers and the refreshments served in-flight, passengers have so much to complain about Nigeria’s domestic carriers. But the one that is so unnerving is the uncertainty that beclouds air operation in Nigeria.
The uncertainty has to do with flight cancellations and the catand- mouse game airlines play with passengers by not providing explanations to them as to what the actual cause/causes of the delay or why the flight was cancelled. Rather, the airlines a penchant for playing the waiting game.
A case in point was what happened about two years ago, when one of the major carriers’ flights to Enugu from Lagos was cancelled few days to Christmas and passengers were told to come back to the airport the next day. When passengers converged at the counter waiting for their boarding passes the next day, the airline simply asked them to wait.
After another long wait, and the airline was not forthcoming about the real position of things, rumours started filtering in that the airline could only deploy one aircraft for the day’s flight to Enugu for both the passengers that were billed to travel on that day and the ones whose flight was cancelled the previous day. The passengers tried to ascertain the true situation, but there was no response.
Conclusion
Poor customer service does not have the impact as it did in the past for other reasons too. With multiple airline mergers, fortress hubs, and many former airlines out of business, the few remaining major airlines have become an oligopoly (and a monopoly in some cases).
They can get away with poor customer service because there are few other options for a passenger. Furthermore, it seems that customer service has degraded nearly equally for most airlines, so with few exceptions, one airline’s poor customer service is just as bad as another.
Source: woleshadare.com
