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Star letter
Andrew Chan, Hong Kong
OFF SCHEDULE In January last year, 12 of us were scheduled to fly on Royal Air Maroc from Paris Orly to Fez at 1450. I checked the flight status the evening before at 1800, and the journey was listed as on time, but for some reason I couldn’t check in online. Before I went to bed that night, I tried to check in again, and the departure time had been changed to 1130 – 1450 wasn’t even mentioned. I checked on several websites to be sure but was given conflicting information. Paris Orly’s website showed 1130. When I made a dummy booking on Royal Air Maroc’s website, it came up as 1130. Expedia, Flightstats and Google Flights still showed 1450, even until the morning of departure. I called up the airline at around 2300, and it seemed the flight had been changed to 1130. None of
my group members were informed about the three-hour 20-minute change in our departure time. If it wasn’t for me checking the flight’s status the evening before, we would have missed it. I understand airline operations may change, but to reschedule a flight by more than three hours earlier, with less than 24 hours’ notice and without notifying customers – isn’t that a little strange? ■ Royal Air Maroc was unable to provide a response.
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TWICE BITTEN In October 2013, we flew to Perth in business class with Qatar Airways. On the first sector, there was no meal choice, on the second we were showered with a tray of spilled smoothies and, on arrival in Perth, one of our bags was lost and took five days to be returned. We complained to Qatar’s customer care team who simply sent a cut-and-paste email apology. We wrote again and they awarded us 5,000 Qmiles each – less than 5 per cent of the mileage required to fly one-way in business class from Europe to Perth – and directed us to the team in Perth to arrange reimbursement for the items we had needed to buy while our bag was lost. It then took four months and numerous chasers before our very modest claim was settled. Even though Qatar Airways insisted this experience was not
typical, we were certainly deterred by it and did not fly with the airline again until May this year, when we travelled business class from Dubai via Doha to London. After boarding, a technical fault delayed our departure and we remained on board in unbearably high temperatures. When we eventually took off, the IFE system became inoperable, and one of our seats jammed in the recline position. We landed in Doha with only 25 minutes to catch our London connection, which was boarding from a gate far away. Since no transportation had been provided, a ground staff member insisted that we run with her to the gate, which took more than ten minutes. Once airborne, the IFE system in one of our seats failed twice.
Then, when we arrived in London, our bags were again lost and did not reach us until the following day. We complained to the Qatar Airways customer service team, who
ignored us, and then to the airline’s London office, which has offered us just US$75 each for the delayed bags and for all the other failings we suffered on these latest flights. The airline seems to care very little indeed about compensating fairly for service failures.
18 NOVEMBER 2015 Visit
businesstraveller.com
QATAR AIRWAYS REPLIES: We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the delayed delivery of the customer’s checked-in luggage. We have offered to reimburse any out-of-pocket expenses caused by this delay.
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