Edna Yeo
03-04-2004, 03:51 PM
Posted by Edna Yeo on October 29, 2003 at 02:06:36:
I am writing to you as a seasoned traveller for my years, my comments on a recent flight which I took with NorthWest Airline. This is the first and last time I would be on a flight with NWA. It was the worst flight of my life.
We have brought our whole family of 7 adults and 2 children (more than $10K in expenses) on this flight for a wedding in Canada. The flight experience was so traumatic for both adults and children that it totally destroyed our holiday. Both kids and adults fell sick. The thought that the same situation would be much better handled with less stress on another airline was of much regret.
Booking the flight was a breeze eventhough I did it long distance from Australia, with an excellent customer service, very efficient and friendly reservation contact: Ms Angelita in Singapore Reservation. She was very professional and handled the booking with experience and even advised us on the WorldPerks membership.
We started the journey with a very pleasant crew from SIN-NRT (Sector 1: NW 12Q 06OCT MO SINNRT HK1 0605 1410), and the service was excellent. The crew was predominantly Australasian.
On the journey from NRT-DTW (Sector 2 NW 86Q 06OCT MO NRTDTW HK1 1500 1325) we met the crew (predominantly Americans) from HELL. I have been travelling extensively for the last 10 years, with memberships on Singapore Airlines, Qantas and even travelled on smaller airlines like Bhutan Air, Vietnam Airlines, Nepal Airlines, Philippine Airlines etc, and I have NEVER experienced such atrocious standard of service and flight crew on board.
Upon check-in, for some reason, we were not able to sit together as a group, and this created some problems as the kids and the older generation were travelling such long distances for the very first time. It made it hard to try to help the kids (2 kids) or reassure the older family members (3 senior adults).
After the flight took off, we ask for a bassinet for the kids, it took 4 reminders and 2 hours later before the bassinet was brought to us. And when it came, it was a cardboard insert into the bassinet with no blankets or foam. This was first of all uncomfortable and also dangerous for the baby during turbulence as the baby can roll around knocking herself and even fly out of the bassinet any time. Despite asking many times for more blankets, it was not made available, however, other passengers gave us theirs to keep the baby warm and snugged in the bassinet so that she cannot roll around.
Bear in mind this is a 13-15 hours flight.
During mealtime, we asked for the infant/kid meals and was told that this was not available as infant and kids were not eligible for meals when they are lap kids (they do not have their own seats). It was the airline’s regulation that the parents have to provide food for the kids during the flight and not the airline. How can this be true when in the previous shorter flight we were able to get the meal as per the instructions given during booking of the flights? We tried to tell the flight attendant that this was not the case in the previous flights and we definitely did make arrangements with the airline for the meals, if whether she could kindly check again. Not only did she not want to check again, she was arrogant and rude, insistent that the airline regulations are as such; “no food for lap kids”. Finally she started threatening us with detention in USA when we arrive in US grounds if we do not keep quiet about the meal. Her exact words were “This is a very long flight and you will get more of this bad service, I will have you arrested when we arrive in the US” I know to have kids travelling in a long flight can be exhaustive, however, to not feed the kids for 13-15 hours was definitely unreasonable and irresponsible. To put babies at risk was a very inhumane thing to do.
Three quarters through the long flight, we had another flight attendant who was very kind and secretly brought the frozen baby food (tagged with the kids’ name) to us that the previous lady claim was not ordered. When we asked the same flight attendant at our row to heat up the frozen baby food, she said there was no facility to heat up the food on board; hence the babies went without solid food for the whole flight. Arriving in Canada, the babies were hunger/uncomfortable; both fell ill upon arrival and had to be attended by doctors.
Throughout such a long flight, there was hardly any flight attendant in sight; the service bells were infrequently functional, there was not even a round of water throughout the flight duration.
None of the crew in our section was wearing a nametag, we asked a few of them and they claimed they did not know each other’s names. Only upon landing, I caught the name of a flight attendant serving the business/first class that was Ed. Instead of pointing out the entire flight crew, I would have liked to point out the name of the female flight attendant who served us on that flight, but this is not possible, as they were not wearing their nametags.
I have had time to read your “Northwest's Customer Service Program Sets New Standards for Service and Commitment to Customers.” Must say I have been very disappointed that such low quality service is allowed to continue in your airline.
In reply to my email to the company, the company sent anemail, saying that it is a policy for non-fare paying passengers to be not provided with food. However, the children paid an Infant in lap fare (both below the age of 2) when we booked the flight. If the company policy states that such kids are not to be supplied with food, it should have been advised to the parents at the time of booking that the kids will not be provided with any baby food for such a long flight. However, we were told that we should have specific instructions for baby food, which we did and both sectors apparently had the baby food labelled with the infants names, so it was available, but not given to the kids. Furthermore, this policy is also not clearly stated in their website if we are to do an online booking.
In fact, the whole incident would have been forgivable if not for the language used, arrogance and the attitude of the crew. That was shocking, and I do not think that the airline sufficiently addressed that. Any mistakes would have been forgivable if the attitude of a customer service provider is reasonable.
I guess with as many staff as NWA, it is difficult to expect consistency with customer services, but in an aircraft you are a captive audience and to be subjected to such language and torment is traumatic. Staff should have pride in their work and be proud enough to wear their names tags for identification and accountability. It goes to show that customer service is a total package and involves the whole team.
Henceforth, I will strongly advise my company and other travelling friends/family not to allow travel on NWA flights, so that my staff and friends/family do not suffer similar fates.
Thanks and regards,
Edna Yeo
I am writing to you as a seasoned traveller for my years, my comments on a recent flight which I took with NorthWest Airline. This is the first and last time I would be on a flight with NWA. It was the worst flight of my life.
We have brought our whole family of 7 adults and 2 children (more than $10K in expenses) on this flight for a wedding in Canada. The flight experience was so traumatic for both adults and children that it totally destroyed our holiday. Both kids and adults fell sick. The thought that the same situation would be much better handled with less stress on another airline was of much regret.
Booking the flight was a breeze eventhough I did it long distance from Australia, with an excellent customer service, very efficient and friendly reservation contact: Ms Angelita in Singapore Reservation. She was very professional and handled the booking with experience and even advised us on the WorldPerks membership.
We started the journey with a very pleasant crew from SIN-NRT (Sector 1: NW 12Q 06OCT MO SINNRT HK1 0605 1410), and the service was excellent. The crew was predominantly Australasian.
On the journey from NRT-DTW (Sector 2 NW 86Q 06OCT MO NRTDTW HK1 1500 1325) we met the crew (predominantly Americans) from HELL. I have been travelling extensively for the last 10 years, with memberships on Singapore Airlines, Qantas and even travelled on smaller airlines like Bhutan Air, Vietnam Airlines, Nepal Airlines, Philippine Airlines etc, and I have NEVER experienced such atrocious standard of service and flight crew on board.
Upon check-in, for some reason, we were not able to sit together as a group, and this created some problems as the kids and the older generation were travelling such long distances for the very first time. It made it hard to try to help the kids (2 kids) or reassure the older family members (3 senior adults).
After the flight took off, we ask for a bassinet for the kids, it took 4 reminders and 2 hours later before the bassinet was brought to us. And when it came, it was a cardboard insert into the bassinet with no blankets or foam. This was first of all uncomfortable and also dangerous for the baby during turbulence as the baby can roll around knocking herself and even fly out of the bassinet any time. Despite asking many times for more blankets, it was not made available, however, other passengers gave us theirs to keep the baby warm and snugged in the bassinet so that she cannot roll around.
Bear in mind this is a 13-15 hours flight.
During mealtime, we asked for the infant/kid meals and was told that this was not available as infant and kids were not eligible for meals when they are lap kids (they do not have their own seats). It was the airline’s regulation that the parents have to provide food for the kids during the flight and not the airline. How can this be true when in the previous shorter flight we were able to get the meal as per the instructions given during booking of the flights? We tried to tell the flight attendant that this was not the case in the previous flights and we definitely did make arrangements with the airline for the meals, if whether she could kindly check again. Not only did she not want to check again, she was arrogant and rude, insistent that the airline regulations are as such; “no food for lap kids”. Finally she started threatening us with detention in USA when we arrive in US grounds if we do not keep quiet about the meal. Her exact words were “This is a very long flight and you will get more of this bad service, I will have you arrested when we arrive in the US” I know to have kids travelling in a long flight can be exhaustive, however, to not feed the kids for 13-15 hours was definitely unreasonable and irresponsible. To put babies at risk was a very inhumane thing to do.
Three quarters through the long flight, we had another flight attendant who was very kind and secretly brought the frozen baby food (tagged with the kids’ name) to us that the previous lady claim was not ordered. When we asked the same flight attendant at our row to heat up the frozen baby food, she said there was no facility to heat up the food on board; hence the babies went without solid food for the whole flight. Arriving in Canada, the babies were hunger/uncomfortable; both fell ill upon arrival and had to be attended by doctors.
Throughout such a long flight, there was hardly any flight attendant in sight; the service bells were infrequently functional, there was not even a round of water throughout the flight duration.
None of the crew in our section was wearing a nametag, we asked a few of them and they claimed they did not know each other’s names. Only upon landing, I caught the name of a flight attendant serving the business/first class that was Ed. Instead of pointing out the entire flight crew, I would have liked to point out the name of the female flight attendant who served us on that flight, but this is not possible, as they were not wearing their nametags.
I have had time to read your “Northwest's Customer Service Program Sets New Standards for Service and Commitment to Customers.” Must say I have been very disappointed that such low quality service is allowed to continue in your airline.
In reply to my email to the company, the company sent anemail, saying that it is a policy for non-fare paying passengers to be not provided with food. However, the children paid an Infant in lap fare (both below the age of 2) when we booked the flight. If the company policy states that such kids are not to be supplied with food, it should have been advised to the parents at the time of booking that the kids will not be provided with any baby food for such a long flight. However, we were told that we should have specific instructions for baby food, which we did and both sectors apparently had the baby food labelled with the infants names, so it was available, but not given to the kids. Furthermore, this policy is also not clearly stated in their website if we are to do an online booking.
In fact, the whole incident would have been forgivable if not for the language used, arrogance and the attitude of the crew. That was shocking, and I do not think that the airline sufficiently addressed that. Any mistakes would have been forgivable if the attitude of a customer service provider is reasonable.
I guess with as many staff as NWA, it is difficult to expect consistency with customer services, but in an aircraft you are a captive audience and to be subjected to such language and torment is traumatic. Staff should have pride in their work and be proud enough to wear their names tags for identification and accountability. It goes to show that customer service is a total package and involves the whole team.
Henceforth, I will strongly advise my company and other travelling friends/family not to allow travel on NWA flights, so that my staff and friends/family do not suffer similar fates.
Thanks and regards,
Edna Yeo