I was already well aware of the process followed (give me some credit please !) and also the fact that crew members are unlikely to choose to incriminate themselves.

My essential point was much more about the nature of the fundamental culture created by the most senior management at EK ; a culture that seemingly allows lower level administrative back office management (the level concerned with day-to-day customer service issues) to feel comfortable in responding to pomkiwi's formal complaint in the manner they did.

In organisations that are truly and consistently customer-focused (ie those that don't simply pay lip service to the philosophy) the issues experienced by pomkiwi would, most likely, not have happened in the first place. But then on the rare occasions when things DO go wrong (stuff happens after all) the first instinct would be to placate - rather than insult and thus further annoy - the passengers affected by denying all responsibility.

My own (and, to date, my one) formal complaint concerning unacceptable performance by an EK Purser did in fact yield an adequate apology and goodwill gesture by customer services. But I suspect that was perhaps because the issue was more generic, and I had let it be known in my letter that other passengers I spoke to were similarly affected by the incident.