What do London, Addis Ababa, Birmingham, Dubai, Chicago and Atlanta have in common? Probably a number of things, though for me, what links them together is that in each, I’ve found myself on a bus, being shuttled from the airport to a hotel, having either missed a connection, or experienced a delayed / cancelled flight. Each experience has been with a different airline, and a range of impressions left by the varying levels of customer service. The number of incidents is perhaps a reflection of the amount of air travel I’m doing these days – 19 flights in the last 3 months alone!
In chronological order:-
1. London & Addis Ababa – July 2005. An Ethiopian Airline flight from London to Nairobi. The initial problem was the plane arriving at Heathrow late, resulting in our flight not being allowed to depart as it was beyond the curfew time. Except that we, the passengers, didn’t know that until we were served dinner on the plane at the gate! An hour or so later, buses took us to various hotels. The lasting impression of the following 40 or so hours was of a complete lack of communication and / or apology. I can’t quite remember how we knew when we were returning to Heathrow the next day, but I do remember it being very unclear when we got there when the flight would leave. It did though,….. eventually. However, all was not over. Fog in Addis meant that the plane was re-routed to Djibouti where we sat on the tarmac until the fog cleared, by which time I’d missed the morning flight to Nairobi! So, on to another hotel. And an opportunity to go to bed, though only for a couple of hours by the time all the paperwork at the hotel was done. (The fact that the bedding and towels hadn’t been changed since the previous occupant was not worth the time getting a room change!) It took me 48 hours to travel from Nottingham to Nairobi. I swore then never to travel Ethiopian again. However, given that Ethiopian and Kenya Airways are the two main airlines for travel across Africa, I haven’t been able to stick with that.
2. Birmingham and Dubai – January 2010. Emirates flight to Nairobi, cancelled out of Birmingham because of heavy snow. Seeing all other flights being cancelled, it was fairly inevitable that our turn would come. Emirates ground staff were excellent in handling this, though again, it was several hours to actually get to the hotel. The staff there were great too, laying on mounds of sandwiches and such like for all these extra people who’d pitched up around midnight. The next morning, Emirates personnel were available to answer questions and give information – such as they knew, the stopping of snowfall and resuming of flights not being possible to put an exact time on! We were told that for those with connections in Dubai, it’d be possible to get a hotel room there too. It wasn’t exactly obvious where to go when we got there, and it took some traipsing around the airport to find the appropriate desk. However, it was definitely worth it for the bed and shower. I’d evidently had some kind of marker put by my name, as I was one of the first to be served food on the flight to Nairobi the following morning.
3. Chicago – April 2010. The ash cloud from the Icelandic volcano was the reason this time. The flight was British Airways to London. One night in a hotel, but summoned back to O’Hare Airport the next day (no explanation given), and told we were on our own. Extraordinary circumstances for sure, but could they have been a bit more helpful? Thankfully for me, I had some place I could go thanks to some friends of SIL colleagues. My flight wound up being 12 days later than scheduled.
4. Atlanta – August 2011. Delta flight from Atlanta to London. A thunderstorm in Atlanta closed down the airport for a couple of hours, meaning that my flight from Orlando was 2 hours late taking off – which was the connection time that I had in Atlanta! I raced to the gate, but it had already closed and the plane had taxied off. (Ironic that that flight was bang on time when so many flights earlier in the afternoon had been significantly delayed!) Question – Knowing that there was someone so close to getting there, could they not have delayed the flight just a few minutes? As directed, I proceeded to the International Rebooking desk. And this is where Delta really fell down. The Delta staff on the desks there started leaving, it being the end of their working day! I’d been standing in line for about 20 minutes or so (as had about 6-8 others), and they just checked out! I and some other stranded passengers (a number of whom were not happy at all – the language was quite colourful!) then had to go to the other end of the airport, and stand in another line, waiting for an hour or more to be seen. Another hotel, though this time at a cost (albeit discounted). Service on the 6 Delta flights within the US that trip had been very good, so it was a shame that the experience at the airport on the last leg rather nullified all of that.
Add to this two other non-hotel experiences:-
• Antrak domestic flight from Tamale to Accra – July 2011. 8.5 hours late, some of which was due to a thunderstorm in the early hours of the morning. I’d arrived at 6am for a 7:45am flight. At 8am, we were all told to return at 11:30am. When I and others did, there were no staff in sight, no food or water offered, and no information given, even when the staff finally did pitch up. And never a word of apology.
• Kenya Airways domestic flight from Nairobi to Malindi – July 2011. Cancelled a month ahead of time, so they put me on an earlier flight to Mombasa (a flight time of my choice) instead, and transferred me by road to the hotel II was staying at at the coast, free of charge! What’s more, the flight to Mombasa was just 40 minutes late, and there must have been about 3 or 4 times that they apologized for that! (This stood out all the more, as it was just 2 days on from the experience with Antrak.)
So, going by my experiences alone, I’d apply the following ranking to these various airlines customer service when it comes to delayed, cancelled or missed flights:
1. Emirates – The clear winner
2. Kenya Airways
3. British Airways
4. Delta – Not at all impressed by the staff at that Rebooking desk!
5. Ethiopian
6. Antrak – Definitely way down at the bottom.
Of course, as I fly more, that's all subject to change!
I guess that a word of advice, as a colleague mentioned a few days ago, would be to never travel with me! (Or always have at least a spare change of underwear in your carry on if you do!)
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