Article: Irregular Operations: Great Communication Makes All The Difference

[AFF Editor]

Canonical URL

https://www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au/irregular-operations-communication/

Irregular Operations: Great Communication Makes All The Difference is an article written by the AFF editorial team:

Irregular Operations: Great Communication Makes All The Difference

Excellent communication makes all the difference when a flight is disrupted. My recent Virgin Australia flight, which diverted shortly after take-off, is a great example of that.

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

You can leave a comment or discuss this topic below.

 

[Melburnian1]

Did the Captain use the PA system so passengers at the back could hear him, or did his voice naturally just carry the distance to the back rows?

Agree that cancelled 'due to operational requirements' is insufficient.

Gate staff in Australia can be passive-aggressive, though it's probably wearing if they have to field similar queries several times a day, or many times an hour if there's a major disruption.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not only for insurance purposes, but also for ACL and the contract of carriage!

Australian consumer law has different outcomes whether something is within or purpose and airline’s control. Same for the contract of carriage.

Airlines are absolutely required to tell you the reason for the delay based on those two areas alone.

Agree that ‘delay due to the late inbound’ is a pretty poor excuse. It doesn’t work in Europe or the UK where EU/UK261 applies.

The reason for the delay is that the airline doesn’t have a plane to operate the service.

 

[MollyJones]

I will always judge a business based on how they handle things going wrong.
There are always going to be problems that arise because, well, life. But when a business empowers it employees to make customer focused decisions, when they inform you not only of the problem but also what they are doing to address it, when they acknowledge that the problem is inconvenient and tell you how long it might take to remedy, well, they are the businesses I return to.

 

[BCons]

We're not in kindergarden (well not most of us..) so just give an explanation of the issue and dont do the old namby pamby 'delay due to the late arrival of the aircraft on its previous flight'. We can see that just by looking..

 

[VZ1_60]

Airlines are generally notorious for poor communication. Last year we had a delay in Singapore. By the time of the flight there had not been much communication however about 15 minutes after the flight time the Captain came out and spoke with all the passengers explaining the issue and detailing the proposed solution and timeframe. It was quite refreshing and very clear and concise communication.