Great Customer Service - NOT

[TWAnr]

Gordon Bethune, former Chairman and CEO, Continental Airlines:

At Continental, we learned that you must trust your people to do a good job. Robert Spector shows that entrusting and empowering your employees are essential ingredients for a corporate culture of great customer service.

Lessons from the Nordstrom Way: How Companies are Emulating the #1 Customer Service Company

I always was under the impression that Continental prided itself on its superior customer service. My sister’s recent experience is as bad as can be.

She was booked on a flight from LAX for Palau, by way of Honolulu and Guam, on Friday morning. She is traveling with a group of twelve on their way to a scuba diving trip.

Friday morning, CO 03 was delayed ten hours due to a maintenance dispute between CO and the engine maker GE. Another plane had to be brought to LAX. Instead of booking the through passengers with connections on other airlines to HNL, so that they could make their connection, CO opted to put them up for the night at HNL and book them on the next day’s flights. In place of being on CO 01 to GUM on Friday, which was to depart HNL two hours after their scheduled arrival from LAX, my sister’s group was rebooked on a flight to GUM on Saturday. Unfortunately, only nine of the group could be accommodated on the next day’s flights.

Saturday, one of the two flights from HNL to GUM, CO 952, was cancelled due to a mechanical (at least, that is what they were told by the airline). None of the diving group members made it on the one flight that did operate, CO 01. One more night at HNL.

With a bit of luck, they will be on today’s non-stop flight from HNL to GUM. If they do get on this flight and on the connection to Palau, they will get to their destination only two days late.

What did Continental offer them to make up for all this inconvenience and disappointment? Passes to the Presidents Club in HNL for today only.

In my book, that does not quite make up for missing their dive boat.

Surely Continental can and should do better.

 

[Borescope]

Most people would jump at the chance to spend a few days on the beach in Honolulu, and there is some great diving there as well.

 

[whatkindoffreshhell]

How would the "average" passenger know that a delay was caused by a dispute between CO and the engine-maker GE?

I don't doubt the other parts of your story sir and I know there are few airlines that go to that destination.

Good luck.

 

[TWAnr]

Most people would jump at the chance to spend a few days on the beach in Honolulu, and there is some great diving there as well.

Not when they shelled out thousands of dollars to be on a dive boat departing Palau, when all their equipment has been checked in and when they spend their waking hours at the Honolulu airport and not a Waikiki Beach.

How would the "average" passenger know that a delay was caused by a dispute between CO and the engine-maker GE?

That is what their tour leader was told by airline officials.

...and I know there are few airlines that go to that destination.

Exactly, that is why they should have been booked on other airlines by continental instead of being shuttled between the HNL airport and a hotel on two days running.