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I love these stories!

UltraRant

I actually got a DYKWIA-experience recently. But the roles were as reversed as can be.

On May 20 this year I flew AMS-MUC on LH with a 45 minute transfer to the connecting flight. The flight was going to be about 15 minutes late on arrival in MUC. I asked the purser on the flight if there was any information known about my connection as there was now relatively short time (just 30 minutes left, which should still be sufficient, but it's LH...). She reassured me at the end of the flight that all was ok and I should just sit back and relax and staff at MUC would take care of it.

Long story short: we landed about 30 minutes before the connection left. No one was there to help me connect (sometimes they send someone to directly take you to a connection), so I assumed all was ok and I could just go to the gate myself. As we were on an outside position we had to be bussed (took 10 minutes, via a touristic route along the terminal under construction), I ran short on time, so I flew up the escalator, sprinted to the exit gate for the connection, just to find it completely deserted.

As I've been taught at a previous experience, I should ask the nearest LH employee instead of going to the service center first. I encountered a guy a few gates away who was waiting for the last passengers to board a flight to ARN. As he was basically idle, I asked him where my connection was. He told me the gate I found on the screens. I asked him what happened as no one was there and he told me that I was too late (it was about 10 to 15 minutes before scheduled departure time). I told him I found it disappointing (no more than that), as I was assured by the purser that I'd be taken care of to make my connection.

Apparently this was the wrong reaction, as he instantly started to verbally attack me, telling me how anti social I am to think that a whole flight would wait for me, that I shouldn't be so slow to get to the gate and that it was fully my mistake to show up too late. I basically was the reason why his job was made more difficult than necessary. I was a bit flabbergasted as I didn't expect such a response. So I tried to explain the situation which got me on a quite rude 'this conversation is over'. All spoken in English, by the way. Clearly a case of a DYKWIA-employee, I'd say... 'look at meee, working for lufthanseee!'

So I made my way from this big ego to the service desk, just to my surprise to find him there a few minutes later and starting to tell -in German- the service desk employee who was handling my case how horrible I was and what 'unspeakable' things I did. So, if the service desk employee would be so kind to put me on the black list, please. He refused to say what I did, but -still in German- he hinted that I had called him a Nazi, without having the courage to say it out loud. As I do understand German pretty good, I instantly started protesting, which took them by surprise. As I was still flabbergasted, I tried to get the situation livable as my only wish at the time was to get home without trouble. As the check in desk guy and the service center guy instantly teamed up, it ended up with me apologizing for things I didn't do before service center guy wanted to even consider helping me further. Talking about a DYKWIA-employee who instantly takes any stranded customer with a shiny airline card as a DYKWIA-passenger. Anyway, if I really did unspeakable things he a) didn't have to speak in German to his colleague and b) he could easily just state what I did then (which he didn't)

In hindsight I should of course have become the expected DYKWIA-passenger and demanded to speak to a manager (so typically me: never encountering this kind of thing 'agressive', especially not at times I should). I actually found out later that what he did was a criminal act according to German law (German Federal Penal Code, paragraphs 185 to 200, especially 185, 186 and 187 apply), so that would have been interesting. I'm still wondering how to get this communicated best with LH, as their service center is a firewall which is impenetrable for all they don't wish to know.

To be honest, so far my worst experience with an airline was the KL-incident with the angry onboard personnel and the vomit on the seat, but this one goes to a shared first place. It easily outdoes the LH employee telling me to '.... off' in FRA, or the KL-staff who left me waiting several hours in AMS after I forgot my gold card (and really didn't care about looking me up, or looking at the text on my boarding pass or anything), or the KL way of handling lost luggage in the Antilles (which basically cost me 2 days of my vacation). Does anyone know a European airline which has humane or at least reasonable staff and also flies to and from OSL?

Bottom line: it's not only passengers in aviation who suffer from a disease called 'too big ego'.

ps. Am I the only one who has a talent for frequently running into this kind of people? I sometimes feel I do...

TRAVELSIG

Perhaps I am in too cruel of a mood today however I think the DYKWIA types are even better when you segment them into nationality stereotypes:

1) The Italian "too cool for school" who also can be Spanish, Brazilian, and Argentinian- has an outfit on that costs more than your car but looks like it is torn to shreds- at least two mobiles and appears to be perpetually bored. Usually traveling with a girl/boy toy (depends really) who appears to have stepped just out of Vogue, GQ, or similar magazines. Cannot believe that LH had the audacity to sell him/her a ticket on an aircraft that is not a private jet only for them. Tends to be calling their PA while waiting in the boarding queue to understand how this whole checkin process actually works. Obviously a victim of the trust fund crisis and now downgraded to flying commercial.

I will add a few more starter lines- let's keep in the context of the DYKWIA and LH only:

2) The American "I am a 1K member and therefore......"

3) The Korean "I speak perfect English until you told me I have not been upgraded to First class without paying anymore..."

4) The German Uber Important super manager

5) The Canadian who pretends to be polite while attempting to bump your upgrade

....

If someone finds this offensive please delete or simply understand it was meant in good fun and certainly not to actually reflect any certain nationality (except for the 1Ks where I hold this is the case).

N1003U

I find these types are wonderful for the entertainment value. They seem to me to be very common in New York, London, and Singapore (which lends credence to your take on the type...)

are you speaking here of the 1Ks who don't understand that LH doesn't care how much money they spent flying with United this year (or last year)...?

My favorite anecdote here happened a few years back:
classic #4, complete with standard "KPMG-issue" mini (square) Rimowa roller-luggage (w/ appropriate red SEN tag), F ticket, yammering into handy (as a foreigner I can't always tell exactly, but he sounded like he had a Bavarian accent) at the AA pier at LGA. If you spend anytime at all on a German train platform on a Monday morning where the first class cars stop, you probably know exactly the look and sound of this type.

Line for security snaked back about 50m toward the ticket counters (and there was/is no priority/elite/VIP line in this particular terminal at LGA). He marched past the entire line, directly to the TSA guy checking boarding passes, cut off an old lady who was next in line, and handed the agent his boarding pass (while still on his (obviously very important) phone call. The agent relatively politely (for a busy New Yorker) informed him (with a classic Queens accent) that there is no prioity line, and the end of the line was "over there", pointing down the corridor.

The guy terminated his mobile call, and stood there for a good minute or so, apparently völlig erstaunt (or doing a good job of acting so), staring at the agent (who now was ignoring him and tending to the line of passengers).

Then he said something else to the agent (I couldn't hear, as I was already at the security scanners, but could still see), and the agent then more aggressively motioned him to the end of the line, after which he pouted and stormed off, still not-quite-believeing that he had to wait in line with the rest of the proletariat...

NewbieRunner

I think they've figured out your FT handle...

weero

As a 1K I never understood why LH did care about us - much more than about me when I impersonated the SEN.

These days I understand: 1K => revenue for tix and lounge entry. SEN=cost for priority boarding and lounge entry and miles owed .....

oliver2002

I had the classic German WDWIB in the club of the SHA Hyatt last week. Talking on the bberry to his friend in Cologne very loudly in German. Somehow all Businesskasper think that if you don't look German you don't understand German
Anyway, after going thru details on how exactly his buddy had fun with a female friend the previous weekend he described how he was with his fiancée in Montreux and then hopped on LX to come to PVG and instantly work. The guy didn't like the LX C product at all, he kept insisting how much better the LH F was that he flew HKG-FRA the week before. He was leaving on ANA F to TYO in the evening and would be in HKG again tomorrow. Oh, and his fiancée had a jewellery business on the side that took her to Paris, Dubai & New York. 'Can you believe it? She already sold stuff for 100k this year!' (sounded like the Jodeldiplom )

N1003U

Aren't you still a SEN? Or have you been officially blacklisted...

I would love to believe that the LH accounting system is so primitive and naive--it would explain a lot of things, but I can't quite make myself believe LH is that dumb.

Sadly, my anecdotal observation is that recognition as an important LH customer is ever more tightly correlated with the price of the ticket I am traveling on on that particular day--and sometimes even that doesn't seem to matter.

On (fortunately more than a few) occasions, there are motivated flight crew members who buck this trend and at least try (or try to appear) to recognize that I purchase LH products on a regular basis and to persuade me to do more future business with LH.

I suppose the healthy frequent flyer/road warrior (be he or she FTL, SEN, HON, 1k, or otherwise) after a time develops a certain resistance to the DYKWIA-Syndrome (of course this thread is dedicated to those who have not, for one reason or another, developed that resistance, to the amusement of their fellow travelers).

However, especially after a long day/night of long flights and many delays, those inner-brain emotions still come to us when we feel we are being treated unfairly. In other words, the disease can be controlled, but the infectious agent is still there, and that agent in my opinion is a huge dissonance between the perceived service that is sold by the airline, and the perceived service that is purchased by the customer.

These days air travel is still purchased (and taxed, if I might say) as a luxury good, but often delivered as glorified (or even not so glorious) public transportation.

And so, I look forward to reading here more stories of the reactions of people who don't understand the reality of air travel doesn't typically live up to the promise...

N1003U

Great story...

TRAVELSIG

Sounds like a certain Financial Times columnist....

KP2006

Where can I obtain that? I think that would come in very handy....

TRAVELSIG

Agreed.

The inflight crews actually on Lufthansa are typically my favorite part.

In the lounge recently I have noticed that the Fare Class seems to be a very important piece of information which I find very very strange.

oliver2002

Dr Vogler in Bremen seems to be first to offer it: http://www.lokalkompass.de/recklingh...m-d135545.html

TRAVELSIG

Yesterday morning in the little Schengen HON lounge at VIE I heard a german uber manager say three times in about 1 minute into his "handy" HON LOUNGE. Hopefully he was giving someone directions however I don't think so.....

TRAVELSIG

I personally like the frequent dropping of the line "I will never fly with Lufthansa again"......