Customer loyalty is vital to every type of business and this is a result of good service, which is sadly missing from one airline operating out of Aberdeen.
I’ve written before about airlines deliberately overbooking and have received a number of complaints about it over the last week or so.
Being bumped from a flight is not something you expect when booking and paying upfront, and something which had never happened to me – until last week.
It was my first time flying to Frankfurt – and will probably be my last. Ten of us were put on to standby, nine of whom were eventually found seats, which left me having to fly out the following morning.
Last week at least two morning flights had been cancelled, which had a knock-on effect on the afternoon flight and I’m sure would have put a number of passengers in a similar position to me.
By coincidence, when I was waiting in Frankfurt Airport for the flight home, I met an old friend who relayed his own horror story with the same airline the week before when travelling to Baku.
There had been four in the party and although he and his wife were given seats, his friends were placed on standby because, apparently, the flight was overbooked – more on that in a minute.
The ground handling company Swissport did manage to get them flights with KLM to Amsterdam and from there on to Frankfurt to connect to the Baku flight.
Now, back to the overbooking problem. Staff at Aberdeen had inferred there were no seats available.
However, on boarding the Aberdeen to Frankfurt flight my friend was totally shocked to find around 15 empty seats. This sort of thing gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, they’ve been dishonest with the paying public.
I have been and will continue to be critical of airlines who overbook, but we can’t have a go at the individual staff, who in my case were courteous and have my thanks.
This article originally appeared on the Evening Express website. For more information, read about our new combined website.