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Marina
August 8, 2009
Bad experience
This story happened a year ago. I and my husband have had the unfortunate experience of meeting your staff in Trondheim and Oslo. Our bad luck started from our leaving Trondheim on June 1st, 08 where my husband and I, two Israeli doctors, arrived to take flight No. SK 335, SAS, Trondheim - Oslo. We had been informed that the airfield is closed at night and opens only at 05.30 a.m. At this point, everyone who had an early morning flight arrived at 05.30 a.m. Some were leaving Trondheim as late as 8.00 a.m., 9.00a.m. and even at 10.00a.m. There was a long queue of at least 100 people waiting to be served by only one clerk. No one thought it necessary to deal with earlier flights first and because of this people were under stress. I approached this single clerk to tell her, politely, that my flight would leave in 50 minutes and she answered, in a very impolite manner, that every one is in the same situation. The flight to Oslo arrived on time and then we discovered that our programmed flight, BT 152, Air Baltic, from there to Riga did not appear on the notification screen. We looked for someone with information as the official offices were not manned and we were confused as to where to go and what to do. On approaching the security we were informed that although no one appeared to receive questions, there were ample workers but they did not appear. On being helped by security we met with some help from an official, a blonde woman, from SAS services, whose name was withheld, who said that we must approach a clerk who represented Baltic Air. On her advice we examined our tickets and then we discovered that the real departure time had been changed in the tickets, but in Trondheim, were the single official had been far too busy to speak, no one did notify to us that important fact. I told her that I had a complaint that their clerk in Trondheim had treated us very impolitely and did not inform us that our flight was postponed, and we wish to speak to a supervisor. We were given a card with the address of customer services and told to write our complaints and that the supervisor doesn't work on Sundays. On being informed that, I could only complain in writing from Tel-Aviv, where I would be in another two weeks, another worker, hearing the words Tel Aviv, Israel, jumped up from a back room where she had been drinking coffee and began a tirade involving the fact that we should leave immediately otherwise security would be involved. I was overwhelmed by the lack of good manners shown by the majority of workers of SAS Company, and I approached the head of security to find out what to do. Before I left I asked for the name of the bad-mannered clerks and they refused to identify themselves. The security explained to us how to approach the Baltic Air representative who arranged flights for us to Copenhagen and from there to Riga. We finally found a supervisor and he was very surprised to hear our information, that he never worked on Sundays and he apologized. SAS supervisor informed us that SAS and Air Baltic, Israel should have informed our travel agent that the flight we expected had been cancelled and that it would be far later than it was expected. These men were the only polite people we met, who were prepared to explain to us what had happened and to help us. The change was from 8.25a.m. to 19.30p.m. We had planned to arrive in Riga at 10.00 a.m. and we arrived at 5.00p.m. instead of the late hour of 11.00p.m., had we traveled by the arranged flight of SAS and Air Baltic. This day, June 1st. was ruined and arranged meetings were cancelled, but cancelled too late, as no one would give us information in time. People waiting for us in Riga also ruined their day, as we didn’t arrive as expected. In conclusion, we studied all the consequences due to our flight troubles on returning to Israel, but we discover, that no information was passed on to the required sources, no one in Israel was informed about the changes, including our travel agent and facts were only known by us on our arrival in Oslo.We were very surprised to meet with rude and impolite treatment by workers of air lines, who should have known better, and unwillingness to help, not even giving information as to change of flight. We informing you of this unfortunate situation, as you had the opportunity, recently traveling in India, to experience different kind of service, when our flight was post point. We were informed on time and even proposed compensation according to the international law concerning delayed flights. We were so offended by your clerks, that probably even after years we would not forgot that incident in Oslo airport. Especially as that incident had a anti Israeli flavor.
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