Originally Posted by
Goldorak
We are not talking about large numbers here. How many Ulti does an outstation see ? One once in a while. And, as I said, HKG was one of the station that was providing consistently good service to the Ultimate members and in the same conditions as of today (i.e. one flight late evening), so nothing different last week vs previous occasions.
Indeed, this thread is talking a lot about escort and expedited services. Why ? Simply because this is the most important benefit (along with reserved lounge area) for very frequent travelers like Ulti/HON/etc. Most of the rest is in the nice-to-have category. And this needs to be provided as a consistent perk and not just sometimes, if the weather is nice or if the agents are in a good mood that particular day. To have now “tested” a very significant number of airports since I am Ulti, I can tell you that it is just a question of goodwill and professionalism under the management of the station manager. I have seen outstations with limited ressources providing extraordinary/top notch service while some others with plenty of staff and at non-peak times did not want to move a finger remaining on super lazy mode. What made me upset in HKG is that it was a “consistent” station until now.
happy to know that you are safe.
Sorry for being unclear.
I was talking about probability theory when I referred to the law of large number.
I guess that I already made that point some time ago so nothing original. At CDG they can have and train a large number of staff tp pamper VIPs. Each day, they know that they might need a dozen staff give or take a couple.
In HKG, the number of VIPs vary between 0 (no P pax, no officials, no Ulti) and maybe 6 or more when P is full and a couple of Ulti travel. Some days, there might be a lot of officials and those get real priority.
If you happen to show on a VIP busyday (you said that F was full), then I don't see how they can accomodate you. I used to know a former AF station manager. He was telling me how stressful it was to handle a full flight with overbooking, connecting pax that were delayed, all kind of requests from everyone, cargo problems, etc etc. And sometimes one staff called sick and that was very difficult. Most of the airport staff used by AF is third-party staff (even if dressed in AF uniform, some staff wear several uniforms during the day); and AF can't suddenly hire extra staff at the uncertain hour when a pax shows up and desire escort. And P pax have priority.
I fully understand it is very disappointing not to receive the promised service. But I also understand why it is sometimes difficult to provide. As you know, I am inclined to criticize AF but I doubt that the problem is goodwill or professionalism in the case you mention.
I guess that they would be more proactive in hiring more staff in case an Ulti would request that service, if AF HQ was more demanding regarding FB status.