I'll spare you the details of yet another airline horror story and rather skip to some tips for South African Airways:
- Do NOT use old 747s for short-haul flights. I know you can squeeze more people into a 747. You've already proven that there isn't a snowball's chance in midsummer to get everyone and their luggage on board and the plane in the air on time. Don't print a time on my ticket that you know is not realistic.
- Never EVER lie to your customers. You have no idea how bad this is for your brand and your business. Customers today are a lot more educated than ever before. We know how 'systems' work, so don't blame your incompetence/malice on 'the system'.
- Never EVER try to exploit your customers with 'crippled' service offerings. A ticket is a ticket is a ticket. It takes me from Johannesburg to Cape Town in an airplane in 2 hours. If I'm flying economy it's economy. I don't care if it's 'Class Q' or 'S' or whatever the fuck you wish to call it. If I wish to fly earlier and there's a seat available, do NOT try to charge me an 'upgrade' fee and tell me it's because I bought a 'Discount' ticket online as if it were a cardinal sin, especially if I'm offering to fly at a significantly less busy time of day, thereby giving you the chance to sell my 'prime time' ticket to someone else and get rid of a 'distress' (empty) seat right now. Oh, and did I mention I'm an SAA frequent flyer?
I simply cannot believe how stupid SAA's management is. But then stupidity is often motivated by greed.
However, as we've seen with SAA's phenomenal operating losses, this normally backfires. SAA can blame employee strikes and higher fuel prices all they want. The reason they're losing money is simple: Bad Service.
Bad Service in turn is the result of bad ethics. Fat Cat executives who have no entrepreneurial passion and are more interested in the multimillion rand bonuses that SAA is now famous for.
Get your act together SAA. Customers are leaving you in droves and sooner or later it won't be just them saying 'Adios' to you, you might have to say goodbye to every single one of them. Of course you, the SAA executive, probably don't care as you'll be long gone sipping Pina Colladas in the Caribbean.
Now, where's Richard Branson?
1 comment:
Now what makes me think you had a bad trip to JHB? (come to think of it, is there such a thing as a good trip to JHB? ;)
There is such an opening (as there is in most service industries) for an airline that focuses on service above all else.
I've had bad service on almost all the carriers we have... except that I tend to excuse it on the likes of Kalula - one tends to expect the "cheapies" to drop the ball now and then. Plus they can take the p*ss out of themselves.
Enjoy the big bad apple Henk! ;)
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