Oh looks like fun this-morning on KL1540 from LBA-AMS...

As normal.. I arrive in good time and have to wait for the girls to finish their conversation before checking me in just rude, Serviceair, it's not as if they don't have time to chat in the staff-room, in the gate, while boarding, while on their break etc...

And this is where it gets good..

Boarding is on time.. Then suddenly, the airbridge lurches forward and the door bounces upwards with a nasty screech.. *muffled swearing from outside* followed by *loud swearing from the captain*

Serviceair personnel wander up stairs looking a little sheepish and one older guy who looks like the boss tells a younger guy to "disappear" loudly

...well.. no-way I will make my connection at hamster-jam.. wish me luck!

The adventure continues...

They retracted the airbridge and the door fell off, completely detached from the aircraft..

The flight is delayed until 13:00 but I managed to get re-booked on an in-between flight arriving at my final destination at 16.10.. a little later than the planned 11.30..

Mixed feelings about the handling of the incident which was a little chaotic as there was no announcement about our options after the captain spoke to us to inform us that the flight would not be leaving; this meant that everyone was queuing to speak with two gate agents and all asking the same question..

The result was a full flight of passengers getting pissed off and giving the agents a pretty hard time, which, in turn made them turn defensive, abrupt and unhelpful

Mad dash for the ticket desk, but ST elites were given priority ^

There was only one person on the ticket desk, and 2-3 Serviceair ladies supervising/standing around, which was just fueling people's tensions and this was being directed at staff, which is not really fair on them personally - it is the organization that is at fault for poor training and contingency planning.

Because we were all 'boarded' re-booking was taking some time (10-15min per person) to make re-bookings, especially since almost everyone has connections to re-book. More angry DYKWIA's...

Some points for Serviceair to address:

1.) Urgent, serious retraining for ground crew - seriously, how do you remove an aircraft door with an airbridge???

2.) Customer service training, simple stuff like a smile, welcome and attention (i.e. no personal chatting!!) would make a huge difference to what is an important first interaction between airline and pax.

3.) Clear communication with pax, a simple "ladies, gentlemen, we have two options for you: xxx" would have prevented a swamping and badgering of the GA's, sped the process up immensely and would have relieved peoples frustrations.

4.) Get supervisors to get their hands dirty: I cannot believe that there is only one guy in the airport who is capable of re-booking if there are three ladies who are capable of supervising him.. Jump behind the desk, even if you can only serve a few people, because each one you serve will reduce the queue time by 15min.

/rant

It's a race to the bottom, and I'm not sure who has the edge: Servisair or Aviance.

My own solution was to give up flying regularly, it's just become a miserable experience.

Apart from the inevitably non-functioning "priority luggage", I've never had any problems with Aviance ground handling. They seem reasonably competent and acceptably courteous (but it's true that they're a bit more focused when an AF supervisor is around ). And AFAIK they went as far as developing a lounge with their airline customers at BHX; this truly is something Servisair would never dream of!
On the other hand, out of my 12 last encounters with Servisair, I had problems no fewer than 11 times. The problems with Servisair seem systemic; I don't think there is a major attitude issue with their front-line staff- they often look more desperate and anxious than the customers asking them for assistance. To me, it looks like a case of consistently poor training (e.g. jetbridges) and infrastructure (lounges, IT systems).

Obviously you've never had to deal with GroundForce (LIS, among others). The worst in Europe, IMO.

Hmm.. right - I don't know what's happening here..

The broken door flight (KL1540 / 5th Dec 07) is showing on the KLM website as departed 10.25 arr 12.33 which is rubbish because it was parked on the tarmac when I departed on KL1546 (which is posted as dep 10.42 arr 13.00)



If they did infact cancel this flight then I have some recourse for compensation, however if they just delayed it, then i don't.. But one thing is for sure - that flight did not leave LBA at 10.25..

Any ideas?

I certainly hope the name that bears this carrier is what they excel in.