Customer Affairs - a letdown
 

On a recent J class trip to Lahore and back to Man, I had the honour of the a380 trip.

Upon getting my meal, I opened the cutlery up and noticed it was disgustingly covered in someone elses chocolate dessert....The spoon bottom was covered and this had also crept onto some of the knife and fork.

I returned it and the crew member was also shocked and apologetic.

After finishing my meal I requested as cappuchino...when the tea spoon came with it, it was covered in dried milk and clearly not washed properly.

I asked for the senior and a complaint was logged.

My return flight again in J from DXB to MAN, also suffered the same situation, except this time I took pics and immediately asked for the purser.

He logged the complaint.

Needless to say no one contacted me despite being requested to.

I happened to chase last week and got the standard acknowledgement.

Today however, I was informed that rthanks for letting us know about this, we are sorry, my file was closed and they simply would feeback to the concerned department.

I feel a little let down...

Any ideas on how to try and negotiate something from them, be it some skyward miles???

Thanks

On my experiance with Emirates, If you want something you have to push for it.

I also think you have to separate what's important and what is not. While I feel for the OP, these things do happen. Cutlery is washed by machines. Mistakes happen.

Is this as bad as a J seat not working for a 14-hour flight? Or missing bags for 48-72 hours? Or being stuck on a flight for 7+ hours (on the ground) with little or no information.

Probably not. Perspective is what is needed. Did the dirty cutlery really ruin your J experience?

And while I think it certainly merits a comment so EK can follow up with their cleaning and maintenance contractors, it hardly warrants any form of compensation.

Just my personal 2 cents worth..sorry if I sound harsh.

Sounds a bit like you might be an apologist for EK, but I wouldn't say that myself.

In my experience, the only thing that will get a decent response from EK (and you will have to send your complaint through several channels) is your status and your status with other airlines, ie your potential business to them.

it cuts the mustard for me, but for others?

Grace B, you can say whatever you like. This is, after all, just a discussion right?

I'm hardly an apologist. A fan? Yes. Make no bones about it. And I agree with you that what gets a response from EK is status - but I've also heard of many stories where HVC's still haven't been responded to.

As far as the dirty cutlery goes, it hardly warrants compensation, especially when the fix was bringing a clean set as soon as the incident occurred. A follow up to the contract cleaners - yes. An apology to the customer. Most probably.

+1

^

Bingo.
Have a look in the AA/BA/QF forum and see what they are having a whinge about...
I'm on eightblack's side; could happen to any airline.


Happens to every airline Grace B.

I would agree. There is nio excuse for dirty cutlery but what happened here pales into insignifance when you consider all the hardship a good many passengers suffered during the "ash cloud" and the recent bad weather which stranded hundreds of thousands of pax in Europe and created a mountain of lost and delayed bags.

I have to agree. If this happened to me, and I were to try to quantify the harm, it really amounts to a couple of minutes of inconvenience while waiting for a replacement set. It's not as if I had anywhere else to go. I would be really hard pressed to do anything but thank the cabin attendant for bringing me the new cutlery and getting on with my life.

It may reflect poorly on the airline, but that's their problem, not mine.

Agreed. Now finding a cockroach in your meal - that's a whole other lawsuit.

I too am no apologist for EK but in my personal experiences on several hundred flights in Biz and F I have never had this happen. I am sorry it happened to you but it is clearly an isolated and small problem that sounds like it was dealt with (by being rectified) promptly. At least they use metal cutlery (flatware) rather than the plastic stuff used by American carriers up until I stopped needing to fly them a few years ago.

Just flown on US AIRWAYS, I would have killed for a bit of chocolate on my spoon :-)

The beef meal they served us with came mixed with bone shaped doggy biscuits and a plastic bowl of water with Fido written on the side.

How I wish Emirates would fly Europe to the States.

I am surprised the head steward/(ess) didnt do much more. Last time in J on a DEL/DXB flight my choice of meal wasnt there, she was very very apologetic ( as i am not a meat eater and the Fish had ran out ). At the end of the flight she gave me a box of Godiva chocolates ( the big box ). I think for these small issues, its best to figure it out at the scene of occurrence.

Would i write a letter for this - no? was i happy - yes !

A mean (that the pax can eat) running out is a whole other issue. Because that's an integral part of the product you're purchasing. Had she instead found you a crew meal, or brought one from F, she needn't have given you chocolates - service recovery would already have been done.

I think similarly, most people feel that replacing cutlery was sufficient service recovery, and didn't warrant a bottle of Moet to go along with it. Now, had they run out of cutlery altogether, that would be a different issue.

I had a similar experience last year flying DXB-ACC. There were exactly 23 hot meals catered for 23 passengers in Business Class. Sitting in row 11, I didn't get my first choice, nor my second choice, nor my third choice and eventually when it came to serving me the vegetarian option that was the only thing on offer, the SFS (who I've flown with a couple times before) showed up at my seat and apologetically informed me that an Arab passenger in row 6 had gotten very upset on tasting his fish meal and demanded a substitute - so they had now run out of all hot meals. He offered to see if they could put together something from Economy for me (no pax in First so no catering available from there), but they were also catered exact numbers and that didn't work out. So I had to go hungry. Disappointing since I had skipped breakfast at the lounge that morning, but hardly worth writing to customer affairs about. What realistic restitution could they provide? Send me a meal by courier? Stuff happens.

This is where I would have made it abundantly clear that a bottle or 2 of Moet would have been more than adequate recompense :D

No way. Not getting a hot meal in J deserves a refund/ com-up next time in my view.

I feel a little more sympathetic for the OP. I personally have a weak gastrointestinal system so I am a little more fastidious when food hygiene is concerned.
If the problem happened once then that is understandable, but it happened twice in a short time span so the lapse in service is quite inexcusable.

While I don't think this issue warrants any sort of compensation, the situation should have been handled better.

I know I'm not comparing apples with apples here, but I once had a meal request overlooked by the crew on an SQ Y flight. When I mentioned it to them, not only was the stewardess very apologetic, the chief stewardess came over to speak to me to see if everything was ok. And throughout the flight, the crew were very attentive with whatever needs I had, down to the small things like making sure my drink was topped up, etc.

So at least the crew made up for the mistake, and I left the plane feeling it was still a great flight.

You don't think it warranted any sort of compensation? Not getting a meal on a flight that cost you (or someone else) thousands of dollars?

Well, if it happened to me it would probably be the last flight I'd be making with EK. There are lots of quite good airlines around.

I expect to get good (well appropriate) service whatever class I'm travelling in, as I am paying the wages of all concerned. Some people seem to miss that point.

Always makes me laugh when ppl say they are paying my wages!

To be fair, you are paying the airline/ company for the service provided. The airline pays the wages to the employees!

in Y, emirates does reuse stuff, i wonder if they do this in J as well, for example unopened water packets, orange juice, even cutlery. i'm not sure how hygenic this is, what if the person before you had sneezed all over the stuff :S

it is a bit disgusting sometimes when i pick up that tub of orange juice and it's oily because someone else had handled it but not opened it. Maybe the crew did not notice the cutlery had been used, or dumped it in the "recycling" pile by mistake..

I've also had problems with customer service on Emirates especially during the meal service. The wife and I flew on Emirates from LAX to Dur and following is what occurred and was reported to Emirates:

We were quite pleased with the service and food on all our flights except for EK 215 from Dubai to LAX. I normally do not complain about service but feel I have to in this case since it was so horrible.

This last leg of the journey was an absolute nightmare and has spoilt our entire trip and outlook toward Emirates. To begin with, the flight was absolutely full, possibly due to the volcano ash, since there were people on board that were taking the flight simply to get to the US and then find connecting flights to other cities within.

Within 3 rows of our seat, there were families with children 2 years and younger that screamed and cried for the entire trip. There was a couple behind us with a 2 year old child that kept kicking our seats and crying and we did not get a wink of sleep because of this. Understandably this is all beyond the control of Emirates, however, kindly ask people to purchase a seat for the child in future or provide them with bulkhead seating where there is nobody in front of them. As bad as this was, it does not even compare to the bad service and rudeness of the cabin crew which Emirates does and can control.

Normally, drink service begins as soon as the flight is in a safe cruising altitude and the menus for the meals are given out. This did not happen and about an hour into the flight the crew began giving out the breakfast trays. Typically, this entails giving out the special meals first, however on this flight it seemed that 70-80% of the people ordered special meals so it would have been more prudent and efficient for the crew to pass out the regular meals first but this did not happen.

The lady next to us had ordered a special meal and received it within a few minutes. Around half hour later, they began service for the regular meals. The crew took about 20 minutes after that to reach our seat and my wife received her tray and the crew member said he ran out of food and would be back shortly with my meal. He then disappeared. After 30-40 minutes of waiting I was able to get the attention of another crew member who took another 20 minutes to get my tray. This is now almost 2 hours after my neighbor was served her special meal and at this time all the other passengers already had their meals and tea/coffee and when my meal was delivered the meal was absolutely cold.

I wanted to complain but decided against it since it might take longer again and at that point I was really famished. I simply ate the roll and cheese and crackers.

To add insult to injury, the crew member seemed to be flirting with the lady sitting next to me and was constantly checking in on her and providing her with snacks from first class before the meal service– and brought her champagne and desserts as well after the meal service. After the meal service, the crew simply disappeared.

I tried calling them 5 hours later for a drink but to no avail. My neighbor was asleep and I did not want to disturb her so I simply sat there thirsty, hungry and tired. I tried to contact any crew member but none were available. Eventually, I was too thirsty and could not wait any longer and I managed to get to the galley. I asked for a drink and was told that they are preparing for meal service. At this point I was really upset and told him that he never delivered my breakfast tray since he was too busy attending to my neighbor and I had to get another crew member to deliver a cold tray to me. He did not want to hear this and became rude and raised his voice with everyone looking on. We got into a shouting match with him eventually shouting that for the next meal service, he would deliver my meal first.

This of course did not happen and we again waited for 45 minutes after the special meals were served. The crew member in question was again constantly attending to my neighbor with snacks and drinks from first class without her asking. She even said that he was trying to get her drunk with all the champagne. She also commented on the lack of service we were experiencing and said that it was amazing we were being so patient.

As you can see, with the child kicking and crying constantly and the poor and rude service and being hungry and thirsty this was truly a 16 hour nightmare experience.

Customer affairs did reply and asked for copies of boarding passes and tickets. I sent the requested copies and then nothing - not even an email to acknowledge receipt or anything. I email twice again and simply nothing.

I've only got one question? Why on earth didn't you contact the Cabin Supervisor?

He/she would have resolved this in a minute. And certainly wouldn't have tolerated any crew member shouting at a paying passenger.

Did not think about it the time - I was tired and frustrated and hungry - I know better now.

The cases of EK failing on product delivery are quite rare. tThey also seem highly personalised. In my current 18 months of regularly flying EK Ive come across one case of indifferent service otherwise the quality has been excellent -- at the top of the industry. Much better than 10 years ago, actually.
The fact remains, when aberrations happen they sound quite horrid. In the last OPs case, several puzzling issues for Ek to note, as they reflect systems failure. With a full flight, how was an FA able to offer such personalised flirty service without other cabin crew noticing it as it would increase their workload? How was the FA able to spirirt such a continuous flow of snacks and drinks from F to Y without the knwoledge of the CHief Purser/CSD or whatever the black coat chef de cabine is called? Why did the (seemingly prolonged) shouting match not immediately come to the attention of the economy cabin supervisor? :confused:

The shouting match was in the galley located at the back of the aircraft and it was not prolonged. There were 2 other FA's present who intervened and quickly ushered me out by saying they will attend to me or have Mario give me my meal first. I was also wondering about the goodies from F - he just seemed to bring all kinds of desserts and drinks from there.

Crew members have an area of the cabin they cover. If they give preferential treatment to some pax, the others lose out on attention - they don't just get it from another crew member. This happens all the time, and within limits it is fine. The elderly or parents with infants do require more assistance. Someone who sleeps through the flight is low maintenance. If you build a rapport with the crew they're more likely to chat with you, than carry out a silent meal and drink service.

After the snack service is completed in Business/ First, the crew can give it out to whoever they want since the food will be thrown away anyway. I've often been offered the J class snacks, and tea from F by crew I did build a rapport with. And other freebies like playing cards and pens and what not. Snagging a bottle of Dom however proved to be harder (read impossible).

Like with anything, again, this is about how one approaches someone with a request. I was on one flight where the drinks service was being carried out after people had finished their meal. I wanted a glass of wine so I just asked the crew nicely and they were happy to get it to me early.

Add me to the 'be nice to them and they are nice back' column. I've had nothing but positive experiences with EK staff. Check-in, at the lounge, boarding, in flight. Why? Because I take the time and trouble to talk to them and to be pleasant and friendly towards them. In return I get rewarded. Upgrades, better seats, more drinks, more food etc etc.

Crew members at least in J (ive never flown Y on emirates) work as a team on each aisle. I would imagine that the kind of failure to serve and the incident in the galley would come to someones attention. That it did not is troubling
On the snack service, soem discretion will be used. In both J and F on a long flight snacks are offered for a fairly long duration in between meals. Desserts are limited and F is eat anytime so no CSD would allow distribution immediately after first service, or so i would expect. Hence my point, that the OPs post indicates management failure on the flight. All the more becuae most EK flights I have taken are pretty closely managed by the CSD and the respective cabin in charges.

Not quite sure what you mean by "CSD" and "Cabin In Charges".

Emirates Cabin Crew are classified as G2, G1, SFS and Purser in that progression. On most aircraft, the G2s work in Economy, the G1s in Business (FG1s in First), SFS are in charge of either the Business/Economy Cabins and the Purser is overall in charge/manages the First Class Cabin.

The weakest links are usually the G1s and the SFSs, especially on the 380 fleet. There are "acting" G1s on the 380 with less than a year of total flying experience and SFSs with only 18 months. I have a friend who made 380 Purser last year with only 3.5 years. In comparison, on main fleet it is usually about 18 months for G1, 3 years for SFS and 5 years for Purser. Another friend is doing her SFS training this month and she just completed her 3 years in January.

Sorry by CSD I menat Cabin Service Director ie the crewmwmber in overall charge of Cabin service By ""cabin in Charge"" I meant the SFS