cistavoda

You can then pass the list on to Santa Claus!

TTL

AY has luckily become quite active in gauging the customer satisfaction (after calls and even chats). Rotten apples will not ruin entire baskets in the future, hopefully.

intuition

Ticket types - rather atypical tickets

The business saver ticket is changable with a change fee of 150€ (plus fare change and reissue fee). Or at least so I though. And was tought by Finnair, the ticket type web page still says so. Sure, I knew the joint ventures were nothing good for flyers, so I've moved all my japan business away from AY. Until now, when I did get a NRT ticket. And to my surprise the change fee is 200€.

Did a quick benchmark and it appears the "Business saver" has at least 3 different sets of rules. One for AJB, one for Japan and one for "the rest". Not only the rules for change differs, but the rules&fees for cancellation and number of bags too.

I guess this is pretty well known for all you who regularly fly AY to NA and/or Japan . I just wanted to give this a big
Brand marketing at its worst - one product name, three possible contents

niksal

Not sure if this belongs here or to the höpö höpö thread, but just got off a OSL-HEL flight where the purser was simply odd. C was empty, but she closed the curtain so she had more space to take off the coat (ok, no problem). No papers for plats, but one gentleman got a paper by asking. I bought a wrap and a champagne. Upon paying with my plat DC she asked me if she should give them for free. I'm an honest guy so I told her that she probably should charge for the wrap. She sighed, and then said she needs to get her glasses. Then she also brought the infamous machine for payment, but it didn't react. Then she asked if I had cash, but she didn't have any change. Not that it mattered, because she didn't know how much the wrap costed. At this point my seatmate (also plat) asked if she could just give him a champagne and nuts - he had exact change. Not that it mattered because he had to tell her the cost of the nuts. Well, all was well in the end and she brought me the right change, but still I wonder if she had a bad day, was high, or simply eagerly waiting for her retirement.

heatsink

I had two morning flights last week, and on both occasions the schengen lounge was serving some kind of potato dish rather than the usual meatballs or sausages. Somewhat disappointing. (And btw, the sausages are much better than the meatballs imho)

OH-LGG

Funny and sad thing and tells about AY's customer service level:
I was on board CX flight today (In Y) and before take off, two air hostesses have introduced themselves and asked me if everything is ok or something they can do for me. I sit 10 hrs on AY flight and (asian!) staff speak nothing with me.

I hate those AY's all Asian crew -routes. That AY asian crew is like there is no customers on board.

intuition

Hey, just learn some Canto, will ya? ;-)

I can teach you some mild insults, like "Rice bucket" or "Arrow-root" - both meaning you are useless or not doing what you should. I'm sure Cistavoda can teach you some more powerful stuff.

cistavoda

I'm not that good with 广东话。But this may be of use:
Cantonese Vocabulary: Dirty Cantonese Curse Words and Cuss Words

intuition

Well, mandarin should do too. I mean, isn't the main purpose of puthonga ("the common language") so that you can scold anyone effortlessly?

However, Cantoneese are rather inventive and poetic people when it comes to insults. It is an art form. No need for offensive profanity when you can say stuff like "my neck is getting longer" or "are you making phone congee?"...

heatsink

Cabin crew should really be more proactive when dealing with things.

The breakfast selection sheet was missing on HEL-NRT last week. No big deal, but after landing I heard them apologize to someone, and saying "we assumed you wanted to sleep". Why would you let this happen and not just walk around asking people?

Missing breakfast is so annoying. It happened to me once when the wording incorrectly made it sound like being woken up is the default, so I didn't say anything. I think they've at least fixed that by now, but I don't understand how that particular oversight even got as far as the printer in the first place...

wkndtraveler

Yeah, I've never even seen cabin crew collecting those breakfast selection sheets – before last weekend. For the first time I saw a crew proactively asking breakfast preferences. It was an all Asian crew so kudos to them. ^

intuition

Yeah, I can't really remember if they ever collected the cards. I once tried to hand it over, but FA insisted on taking my breakfast preferences orally. So now I never fill it out.

The cards are, IMHO, yet another thing invented by inflight service concept manager in HEL without making sure it will work in reality.

heatsink

I agree. Although I think it should work. I don't understand why the procedure isn't actually followed.

You shouldn't let problems like these exist in an organization. It'll lower morale and confuse customers.

intuition

Oh, absolutely.

I think the cards (besides some confusing mishaps*) are a good idea. It is just that too often these concepts are not implemented correctly. It might be that service concept manager is not always aware of how work is actually done onboard, and therefore adds tasks that interferes so severely with current operations that purser and staff just decides to ignore them. Or it might be that the organisation itself is too complicated so orders from HQ never reaches FAs in a efficient way.

I keep thinking about the vlogg of CX attendants where you can see them getting briefed by purser on ground before every shift - Does AY ever do such briefs?
"There are 3 platinum onboard, let's make them feel appreciated!" or "Let's make sure all travellers are aware of our new concept - the breakfast cards - and give them the option of filling it out and handing in at their convenience".






*) Like there are two "wake me up" check-boxes... What if only one is checked? And some other confusing wording.

FFlash

Breakfast is IME the worst functioning service element on AY longhauls. Either I want to have a proper one (when I know to be awake), or I want to sleep into last minute, or into last hour and take a quick breakfast. And I always clearly try to make that wish come through to FA, but they have always failed in either listening/willing that order, and failed always to deliver/execute the order even when understood/accepted.