davistev

I just want to document my experience checking in with Asiana Airlines in Seattle as a way to give people a heads up. This is our first flight and encounter with ASIANA.

On Wednesday June 10th, My family and I arrive for check-in for our flight to Cebu via ICN. We have 4 One Way tickets (one is an infant). The wait was short and we were directed to the first economy class check in counter. Our agents name was Ho........ We were not welcomed or greeted other than "tickets please". Not a problem I thought, just another efficient check in agent wanting to process us through quickly. I can live with that especially with a 3 month old tagging along. However, it soon became apparent that Miss Ho..... would be a force to be reckoned with if we are to get our boarding passes. This young lady did whatever she could to deny us boarding. I am not sure why as she must have just finished dealing with some rude customers and we were next to be lined up for "live fire and daggers" retaliation.

I handed Ms. Ho our E-Ticket and 4 passports (Filipino, USA, Canadian and Australian). Because we were on OW tickets she wanted our onward tickets. I presented two OW electronic tickets to Singapore for the Canadian and Australian Passport holders. The 3 month old has a USA passport but dual Filipino Citizenship and as such does not need a onward ticket. Ms. Ho.... informed me that the confirmation letter for our flights to Singapore was not acceptable and that we would not be able to board unless we purchased onward tickets. I was quite shocked as the email confirmation from Cebu Pacific was the only record we got confirming our tickets. Ms. Ho insisted on paper tickets out of the Philippines. I insisted politely she accept the email confirmation as proof of onward passage. I then presented my Asiana Airlines Email confirmation letter side by side with the Cebu Pacific email confirmation letter and asked you why she would accept her airline but not Cebu Pacific's. She insisted on paper tickets. At that point I suggested she get confirmation from her manager as I was not going to be railroaded. She went over, had a discussion and came back and said OK!

Next battle was the luggage. We had 3 bags for check-in (we are allowed 6). However one bag was 6 pounds over 50 and she insisted on charging us excess luggage. I understand the rules and i know she is correct on this but she went into "revenge mode" at this stage. I suggested we weigh the other luggage, one was 40 pounds and the other was close to 50 pounds. So I asked my older son to just move 6 pounds over from one bag to another so we would not have to pay the excess luggage fees. He did so! and she went ahead and printed the luggage tags. Just when I thought it was over . . . . .

Ms. Ho then informs me that the infant cannot travel because he does not have a onward ticket. By this time, I figured she was on a roll and so I did what every professional traveller would do - I smiled and told her to get her supervisor to over-rule her decision as the baby has a right to return to his country of citizenship. A 3 month old baby travels with the mother no matter what and the Mother has a Filipino passport, the baby has dual citizenship with registration Filipino papers. The baby is Filipino and is not bound by the onward ticket rule! But ah yes- she then points out that the last name on the Mother's Filipino Passport is not the same as the baby. I pointed out that this is very common - the mother since married and we produced her US passport with her married name on it. The supervisor overuled her again. She was pissed! If she smiled - SEATAC would crumble.

Finally, she instructs my family to move away from the other counter as they were taking up two counters. I suggested that perhaps they should have thought about that before they ended the economy class line up railings 6ft directly behind our check in counter. I told her this to face in a straight forward manner in the same way as she was treating us.

Lastly came seat allocation. I called ahead and asked for bassinet service. Ms. Ho issued the boarding pass saying only one seat was available and we would have to seat in different parts of the aircraft. Ok I said, BP's were issued and that was the end. Our fist experience with ASIANA airlines ground check in at Seattle airport. My oldest son looked at me and said "What was that all about?" I really did not know what to say to him. I said, she was in a bad mood or something. My wife was not impressed to say the least. Why was she trying to deny us boarding? We had everything in order. It was uncalled for and I hope ASIANA Airlines supervisors recognise that poor employees like this reflect poorly on their airline.

Finally, we board the aircraft and we took our allocated seats. Strange thing, my wife had two empty seats next to her. The seats were not allocated at all. We checked with the flight crew and yes - the seats were not allocated. My son and I moved over and we were one family again. It seems Ms. Ho went ahead and split our family up without any good reason. I will leave it to the reader to decide if this was just a coincidence or .............

Now - the flight itself - incredible economy class service with very attentive flight crew. World class indeed. No complaints atall - it rates a 9 or 10. Imagine, hot towels, fresh shrimp salad, grilled Salmon, Chilled Beer, real cutlery and friendly service in economy in 2009. Simply superb!

SFO777

Wow, certainly sounds like the Check-in agent from hell. Kudos to you for standing up to her. Since she was on a roll, the only thing I might have done differently was I assume that she was deliberately splitting you up and checked with the GA before boarding... but I can understand why you were just happy to have survived check-in and get your BPs.

I would definitely complain to OZ and include the same type of detail as you posted above. I doubt that OZ HQ would be too pleased to hear about your encounter, and might even offer some compensation.

Glad to hear the inflight portion of the trip was positive.

somuchtosee

Thats really unfortunate you has such bad experience with the ground staff. Theres nothing like bad service to begin the trip. I once bought (yes, purchased with $$) a first class international ticket from another airline and had awful service from the ground up! The check in lady litereally belittled me and treated me like a kid! Not to mention the actual flight. The old hags didnt even bother asking me what I wanted. They simply by pass me for other male passengers and when I call a button, they would take their sweet old time and actually frown once they got to my seat.. Is this for real????? I will suck it up as just ONE time incident but I avoid it as much as I can since then.
Well, anyways the story took a little detour. The OZ ground staff is outsourced and NOT part of Asiana corp, if I remember correctly - at least they were 10 years ago. Does anyone know if this is the case still? If so, I wonder if that has something to do with it.

Regardless, I am just glad your OZ flight itself was great. I agree OZ product is one of the best. The food, service and ambience is truly a world class. I have a flight coming on July. Its an award ticket and I had choice between ANA OZ or SQ old style. I've tried all three and I choose OZ with no hesitation. Each one has their pros and cons, like ANA has GREAT food, SQ good service but OZ has OVERALL good product.

DownUnderFlyer

Wow, what a story, davistev. This is really bad customer service.

I would definitely complain to Asiana about this. While your booking was complex, the way the agent has handled the situation was very unprofessional. It would be good if you could post how OZ reacts to your complaint.

One last question: Was this actually a OZ employee or who is handling the checkin at SEA for OZ?

Wilbur12

Not strange at all....These could easily have been prereserved or allocated when you were checking in. I imagine there is lot's of connecting traffic to these Asia bound flights and all it takes is 1 flight to arrive late and several passengers would not make their flight. This is often the reason you all of the sudden will see free seats even though the flight was fully booked.

SFO777

Did you even bother to read OP's story? Yeah sure, there were no seats together when OP checked in for a flight for which Y seat selection was apparently not available.

davistev

G'day DownUnderFlyer,

Yes, she was in full ASIANA uniform so I assume she is an employee and not subcontracted out. I do not really know who to complain to or if it would even make any difference. I guess I could try and find out. I do plan on flying ASIANA monthly to the USA from the Philippines for business so I am sure I will run into Ms. Ho........ again at SEATAC. She is very young and with this in mind I am thinking that she may have been reprimanded recently for a violation of some sort - or she just hates people

But certainly, other Filipino's in line were watching and telling my wife in Visayan that Ms. Ho....... was being a bit,,,! to our family. As of now, it is all speculation as to her reasonings but I have documented this on Flyertalk in a fair manner to warn any future traveler on ASIANA that the SEATAC ground staff could be problematic.

My wife was not impressed and has indicated that we should go back to flying NWA / KLM. Although their product is pretty basic, the flight attendants are sincere and professional and the ground staff are efficient and non-judgmental. I am still undecided.

DownUnderFlyer

The behaviour of one person shouldn't really influence your future travel plans too much. I hope the flight itself was still a pleasant one?

If I were you I would write to the US Asiana office.

3530 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1700 Los Angeles, CA 90010
T.1-213-365-4500
F.1-213-365-9630

If you don't say anything then nothing can change. And you might even get something out of it.

SFO777

By all means, write to OZ and document the shabby treatment...
http://us.flyasiana.com/Global/US/en...?fid=INFO15500

I would also fax it to the local SEA sales and airport offices...
http://us.flyasiana.com/Global/US/en...&searchWrd=#01

And the LA office, as DownUnderFlyer noted, if that is the main US office.

A_Lee

I've had nothing but great experiences with the check-in staff at SEA. I always assumed they were contract workers other than the supervisor, just because that's normally the case when an airline doesn't even have a daily flight from a major airport where contract workers are readily available. Just because they're wearing an OZ uniform doesn't mean they're not contract workers...I've seen plenty of cases of contract workers wearing the company's uniform they're contracted to.

One possible reason for the check-in agent's reluctance to issue you a boarding pass is due to the fact that if a passenger is allowed on the plane and does not have a valid onward ticket, and the Philippine immigration checks (which I've never seen them actually do), the airline will be heavily fined, and the worker will likely be fined by the airline or lose her job if she issued the boarding pass. So if there's any question in the mind of the check-in staff about if you have a valid onward ticket, they don't want to accept responsibility for the decision, and thus the need to have a supervisor approve it. I was refused boarding many years ago on one of my first trips to the Philippines and ended up having to purchase a refundable onward ticket. Most airlines flying into the Philippines are quite strict about this.

But regardless of whether the agent was justified in being cautious about issuing you a boarding pass, obviously the way she handled the situation was totally inappropriate and you definitely should write a letter complaining of the treatment you received.

I definitely would not judge an airline based on the actions of one contract or even permanent staff member at a remote check-in position. I've seen lots of bad workers in these cases, but if the rest of my experience with the airline is good, then I don't let it taint my opinion. I would though handle the situation differently at the time of the problem. I would ask to speak to the supervisor and discuss my problem with the worker, ask for the supervisor's name and inform him/her that I will be writing a letter to the airline's headquarters and hopefully the supervisor will take appropriate action to see to it that the employee is reprimanded and retrained, or else let go. Without some discussion along these lines at the time of the incident, both the employee and supervisor will likely have long forgotten about the details by the time your complaint is processed, and the likelyhood of proper corrective action being taken will not be as good.

DownUnderFlyer

Yes, the LA office is US HQ.

ORDnHKG

Although I am not 100% sure, I think most contract workers that work at the checkin area in US airports are AIRSERV people, and they have their own uniform, blue shirt, with the AIRSERV logo on the top left. Contract workers need to be identify who they are, so that they are not mixed up with other airline's employee. If they wear OZ uniform, most likely OZ staff, especially in the US.

Even if an airline only have a flight once a day or several times a week in an airport, they still have their own staff. In those cases, you will see the checkin personel would also handle at the gate for that flight. However many contract workers can either work at the checkin or the gate, instead of both, unless those contract workers also for an airline like the KA staff in HKG. (OZ used to use KA people in HKG, they were in KA uniforms when handling the OZ flights)

ethelman

DO write and complain. Send a letter AND also fax it.
if that doesn't get you any helpful response- ie compensation- write to Asiana in Seoul.
In my experience US customer services will likely get you "oh dear we're sorry to hear of your bad experience, please let us know if we can be of further assistance". Seoul -as long as you tried US first -will be more helpful.

fly747first

Please, please do file a complaint letter against Ms. Ho. Most of Asiana's employees are fantastic and constantly go out of their way to help customers. It simply isn't fair to them that such a rotten apple like Ms. Ho is putting a negative spell on their hard work and Asiana's image as a whole.

TerryK

Don't know about SEA specifically, but many contractors do wear airlines uniforms. @:-) For example, OZ uses HAS (Hong Kong Airport Services) as ground handling agent in HKG. They wear OZ uniform when handling OZ flights, but their IDs say HAS. They change uniforms before moving on to other flights. Did you look at her ID?