Emirates ... so much for Customer Service.

[ChrisCunard]

Preface: I absolutely believe that safety is the most important thing when flying and airlines should take all precautions as to the safety of passengers. My comments below are relating to the information given to passengers.

We recently flew on Emirates - the below letter was written after the flight to Emirates via the Skywards website. It sets the scene:

Dear sir or madam,

I'm writing to express our disappointment about the experience my partner and I had aboard EK 98 Rome - Dubai ref: XXXXXX.

At Rome airport we were boarded onto the aircraft where we sat for 20 minutes aboard before being told by the Captain that there was a 'minor security issue' causing our delay.

Approx. 20 minutes elapsed after this announcement before a further announcement said 'all passengers collect your luggage and exit the aircraft immediately'.

At this time some passengers were nervous and rushed from the aircraft pushing others as they went. We exited and asked the flight attendant at the door what was going on where she said "I have no idea, no one has told us".

We went back into the departures terminal where all passengers were kept waiting for nearly an hour - with no information. An announcement was made in Italian and also English some time later, advising we would be re-boarded soon.

We were then boarded back onto the aircraft (now close to two hours late) however still no one had any information as to the "security issue" that had been mentioned before by the Captain.

Finally we took off, with no further explanation as to the issue and why we had been removed from the aircraft. This was particularly disappointing as nervous flyers were concerned that there was something wrong with the plane.

We expected better service from an airline such as Emirates.

As frequent flyers, we have never once been asked to exit an aircraft without any information as to why / how long we'd need to wait or what the cause of the disembarkation was.

I wanted to bring this to your attention as both my partner and I did not enjoy our experience aboard Emirates EK 98.

Best regards.

ChrisCunard

Having done a bit of reading about Emirates Customer Service, I didn't expect a timely reply.

Today, some 20 days later, to my surprise the below email arrived:

Dear ChrisCunard,

I refer to an e-mail message of 1^st June, which was sent on your behalf by our office in Rome.

Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience you and MrsChrisCunard encountered due to the delayed departure of flight EK098 from Rome to Dubai on 25^th May 2011.
In this instance, the delay of 2 hours and 8 minutes was due to extra security checks requested by the local Airport Authorities.Although every effort is made to achieve on-time departures, which is an integral part of our product, there are occasions when flights are delayed due to circumstances beyond our control. I do agree that our passengers are inconvenienced when flights are delayed.

Whilst we make every effort to transport passengers according to planned schedules, sometimes operational necessities/technical difficulties cause changes to these schedules. When this happens, we do our utmost to minimise passenger inconvenience.A report from our Flight Purser confirms that an announcement was made to inform all passengers of the extra security check required to be conducted.

Hence, I am at a loss to understand that you state that no announcement was made.

Mr ChrisCunard, the disruption to your travel plan is regrettable, but however, was completely beyond the control of Emirates.

Nevertheless, I sincerely regret that we have been unable to meet your expectations on this occasion and would like to assure you that Emirates places a great deal of emphasis on the services and facilities that are offered to our customers

Thank you for allowing me to address your concerns and for your understanding. We hope this incident has not marred your impression of Emirates and look forward to another opportunity to demonstrate our service commitment.

Yours sincerely,
Customer Affairs

So my questions / comments are...

• Do they actually read the letters - my concern was not about on time performance but rather the lack of information and the way in which we were 'evacuated',
• Why bother replying when the original letter was clearly not read or understood, it just makes the customer more annoyed,
• Do other airlines handle this the same (eg: am I dreaming to expect anything more professional), and
• Is the customer affairs person calling me a liar ("Hence, I am at a loss to understand that you state that no announcement was made.")

Any thoughts?

Also interesting was the original email from Emirates had two different fonts - Arial and Times New Roman, so it was obvious where corporate rubbish had been pasted into the response rather than actually addressing my concern.

[samiam]

We recently flew on Emirates - the below letter was written after the flight to Emirates.

My first impression is... Ummm - it's air travel and $hit happens- at least you weren't blown up or didn't fall out of the sky - that's always a bonus.

My second impression is that in the main, your points were addressed:

At Rome airport we were boarded onto the aircraft where we sat for 20 minutes aboard before being told by the Captain that there was a 'minor security issue' causing our delay.

In this instance, the delay of 2 hours and 8 minutes was due to extra security checks requested by the local Airport Authorities.

An announcement was made in Italian and also English some time later, advising we would be re-boarded soon.

A report from our Flight Purser confirms that an announcement was made to inform all passengers of the extra security check required to be conducted.

Do they actually read the letters - my concern was not about on time performance but rather the lack of information and the way in which we were 'evacuated'

Well they knew the delay was 2 hours and 8 minutes- so I'm guessing yes, they did read your letter. I couldn't pick up in there that your concern was regarding evacuation- a term not used in the original letter.

Why bother replying when the original letter was clearly not read or understood, it just makes the customer more annoyed.

Maybe it wasn't clear what you were asking? Your last 3 paragraphs were statements.

Do other airlines handle this the same (eg: am I dreaming to expect anything more professional).

Yep- refer QF. Nope- refer DJ.

Is the customer affairs person calling me a liar?

No- from both points of view an announcement was made maybe I'm misreading the intent.

As frequent flyers, we have never once been asked to exit an aircraft without any information as to why / how long we'd need to wait or what the cause of the disembarkation was.

DYKWIA - much.

... And those are my thoughts

[ChrisCunard]

Thanks for the comment!

I should have prefaced by saying yes of course the safe arrival and trip was the most important thing and I totally agree that if there was a safety issue they did the right thing by investigating it... in fact I'll add that now as it's totally the most important thing.

I just felt as if communication would have been helpful rather than herding everyone into a departures area and not telling people what was going on.

I guess you're right, $h1th@ppens!

[eightblack]

It's also the reason you should never write a complaint letter to an airline/hotel/restaurant without asking for something in return. Ask yourself - what did you want from EK? A phone call from the EVP of Flight Operations? Or perhaps Tim Clarke? They would have hardly communicated the truth behind the delay - especially if it was security driven.

When you write a complaint letter, and you specifically ask for something, airlines know how to deal with that. Its yes or no. Or a counter offer. I know your concern was genuine (as it should be) but airlines are huge machines. They would have been looking at this in hindsight. And it would have been one of 40 letters for the day...or more.

[browski]

Looks like it was handled expertly and professionally by Emirates. Well done EK!

Whilst the OP has failed in his primary role as a passenger this time, fortunately (unless blacklisted by the airlines) there should be future opportunities for him to pass this test.
.....then the real serious stuff begins, like "Eating in a restaurant". I've failed that 3 times myself this month, but I'm not giving up yet.

[QF029]

My first impression is... Ummm - it's air travel and $hit happens- at least you weren't blown up or didn't fall out of the sky - that's always a bonus.

Me too. They're hardly going to tell you if someone phoned in a bomb threat the plane was checked and they decided it was OK to continue with the flight.

[ChrisCunard]

Looks like it was handled expertly and professionally by Emirates. Well done EK!

Having experienced it, I'd hardly call the way it was handled 'expert' or 'professional' - but I guess you had to be there. It's not so much the fact that they said it was a security issue that bothered us all, more that once we were disembarked there was no communication as to what was going on until we were all herded back aboard.

Whilst the OP has failed in his primary role as a passenger this time, fortunately (unless blacklisted by the airlines) there should be future opportunities for him to pass this test.

I make a very good passenger if I do say so myself I listened to all instructions, exited quickly and quietly without stomping on anyone, didn't bombard the staff in the terminal, who at the time were busy receiving complaints from 1/2 the aircraft, sat where I was told to sit and waited quietly... sadly this was not the case with everyone which caused a bit of chaos aboard the aircraft.

.....then the real serious stuff begins, like "Eating in a restaurant". I've failed that 3 times myself this month, but I'm not giving up yet.

lol

[rechoboam]

They don't care and ultimately there's nothing they can do about it now.

Perhaps there was something/someone on board that hadn't been properly cleared and needed to be rescanned/tagged or whatever. You could be dealing with multiple layers of translation between Arabic, Italian and English so communication is not going to be perfect. Whether you are dealing with security theatre or are unlucky to find yourself in the middle of a major incident, getting a full explanation right in the middle of it is unlikely.

I'm actually most surprised by the pushing. In my experience people react in a remarkably restrained way during emergencies.

[ChrisCunard]

The pushing and shoving is probably what surprised me the most while aboard. I think language barriers probably didn't help - however as people up the back started to push others a bit of panic occurred. Given that this wasn't an emergency I was rather surprised. I was also surprised that the cabin crew made no effort to quell the behavior or help the elderly - something I neglected to mention in the letter. Maybe it was just an off day as the connecting flight from Dubai was wonderful.

[clifford]

Looks like it was handled expertly and professionally by Emirates. Well done EK!

Whilst the OP has failed in his primary role as a passenger this time, fortunately (unless blacklisted by the airlines) there should be future opportunities for him to pass this test.
.....then the real serious stuff begins, like "Eating in a restaurant". I've failed that 3 times myself this month, but I'm not giving up yet.

I can only imagine from your comments that you have never flown EK (or had anything to do with them).

EK customer service can be quite ordinary, unless you are Gold or better.

If I'm wrong in my assessment, I apologise.