Why Air France got me extremely peeved
I am scheduled to travel to Belgium to visit my father who was diagnosed with two aneurisms and is facing a fairly complex and dangerous operation later this month. When he had an aneurism 17 years ago it burst and not only did he almost lose his live - he lost his business.
So I made reservations on Air France to go visit, and when I called my parents today with my itinerary I realized that I had made a mistake. I wanted to come back on the 27th and for some reason when I ordered through airfrance.com they booked me a train from Brussels to Parin on the 27th and a flight on the 28th. Now I order stuff online all the time, and if there is an overnight situation I expect the site to alert me to this. I called Air France, hoping that they would rectify the situation, as I do not want to spend a night around the Paris Airport and also need to be back in the US on the 27th. When I heard that they had plenty of room on the 27th, I thought it would be a no-brainer for them to change my reservation - and was even prepared to pay a fine for what surely was their screwed up user interface. But no, they could not change it - I begged, played nice, tried the empathy card - but the answer was no way, non, merde…you lose your ticket and buy a new one (which I did - but on Air Lingus - hoping the Irish are somewhat better).
Now my family has been using Air France ever since the Belgian Airline went out of business 6 or so years ago.
In these bad economic times, you would expect companies whose service are going to be the first to be cut from personal and business budgets to do everything they can to hold on to their customers - especially if it does not cost them a dime to accommodate the change request which would satisfy the customer, and perhaps make up for their deficient product offering.
I am flabbergasted - but should I? You could blame customer service arrogance, something that the French have been accused of, but in the end it has become an industry-wide behavioral attitude.
How do we customers give them the middle finger?
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October 11th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Ah, this is the Air France we all know and love
I used to fly AF all the time, but switched to Lufthansa after they managed to lose my suitcases four times in a row. Once the handle was broken when they delivered it to my house at 1AM, waking me up, of course!
I wonder if it is a case of tenaciously following the rules vs. thinking and a culture that does not leave any room for personal kindness. Recently I flew AF again with my points (long story), I was in business. My special meal contained foods I am allergic to. Do you think they offered something else? Of course not!
October 20th, 2008 at 12:06 am
Welcome to Air France. In my view the entire country needs an overhaul in customer service but I am biased as every time I arrive in the country one part of the transportation infrastructure is on strike, which of course affects all other aspects.
In all honesty I don’t think it’s a Air France issue. It’s an air transportation issue as all humanity as left the industry. One time I was yelled at on Lufthansa because it wasn’t “Wasser Time”..I kid you not. Wish you and your family the best as there are more important things to be worried about.
November 10th, 2008 at 11:46 am
IMHO, especially an AF issue. I once ripped a $1000 suit in their business lounge at CDG because a door hinge had sharp protruding corners on it. They couldn’t have cared less. BA would have jumped through hoops to reimburse me and fix the problem. United recently jumped through hoops to get me back a bag that I had inadvertently swapped in the men’s room at Washington National in transit.
Have to say I have recently found Lufthansa to be great too… got me back a mobile in Munich that I had left on the plane (yes there’s a pattern here).
AF were always awful and I won’t be sad if they disappear.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Customer service - Mot étranger for AIR FRANCE?
How can a company in the year of 2008 claim to have customer service if you only can contact the customer service via snail mail, fax or a phone line where you have to pay in Europe €0.28/min and which is only available 10am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm, Monday to Friday? Perhaps the customer care center is a marketing initiative to accelerate the growth and revenue of the Anti-stress Centre Air France is offering on their website?
November 10th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I think you did the right thing by selecting Aer Lingus. You’ve voted with your euros. And blogging about it will turn more people off.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
You did the right thing - vote with your wallet…and of course you have done the human thing - tell the world about the poor service of a company. This warns others and does allow the company to respond (if they choose to). I wonder if any one from AF will ever read the many comments about the poor reputation they have. Sadly, I imagine not as all indicators are that they do not care - shame.
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 am
Sadly, that seems to be industry standard.
So imagine my surprise when KLM just cancelled a reservation I had made with a mistake. No questions asked. Interestingly, those two are one company now if I’m not mistaken…
I’ve also made excellent experiences with Lufthansa.