Airline mergers & codesharing
Feb. 21st, 2010 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smittenbyuAfter having to deal with Delta for rescheduling flights for my MIL's return, I gained the nickname of Travel Agent Smitha. Their service was generally good and the representatives were always friendly. It was just frustrating at dealing with the unknown.
This past week, N is in a location where he can't call up the airlines for making seat and meal request confirmations and so I, Agent Smitha, was given the responsibility to do so.
First issue, we didn't really know who we were supposed to call. When he had checked in on Saturday, he had to go to the Air France counter. He had bought the ticket with Delta Airlines, the flight was being operated by KLM and for some reason Air France was taking care of check-in. (We only then learned that Air France had bought over KLM like 4 years ago!)! Well, whatever seat and meal arrangements he had made with Delta, never showed up on Air France computers. Actually, he had made the arrangements with KLM, since he did see that it was operated by KLM. Anyway, the Air France representative said KLM is bad with these things, and they always have an issue. For the return she suggested to call Air France to fix up the arrangements as she saw that they were the ones operating the return, all the way.
So, this is where I entered the picture. I called Air France on Thursday. It took them half an hour to connect me to an agent. Ok, 25 minutes only. And then the representative said, that she was seeing two bookings and so she wouldn't know which one to fix. She shared that I would need to call up Delta to get that fixed.
Sure enough, when I logged on to Air France website for itinerary, there were to N's flying on the same flight, but on the Delta website it was all fine. Anyhow, I called up Delta. They said it could be that the travel agent had made two reservations and only confirmed one. So, she gave me one confirmation number to use.
So, again I call up Air France and a nice rep with a French accent answers the call. I take the nice bit back. She was just so annoying, not the accent (I just love the French accent).
I give the reservation code that I have on my itinerary and she right off starts that's a Delta reservations code, and won't work on our system. ummm ok.. that's my problem, how?! There was so much back and forth. The codes I was giving were Delta codes and not Air France codes. At one point she even berated the travel agent my husband has been regularly using via office for the last few years, and with whom we had no problems with. Apparently their system did not show the air miles number. And she gave the whole, "if it were typed in correctly it would show up on our system." I had the itinerary with me and it clearly showed the airmiles number. Hubby also clearly stated that his trip was recorded for miles. That attitude was not necessary when clearly their system has compatibility issues.
By the end of the conversation, I was just tired of the whole phone call. I am generally very patient and understanding when on the phone with customer service people. I have been in their position before but this round they broke two big rules of what I consider professionalism:
1. Passing the blame on to others, right of the bat!
2. Telling the customer that the information they have doesn't work on their system. This is something that Delta, AirFrance, KLM should fix. I give the information I have been given by the airlines.
And if their darned website worked properly we could have just done it online and wouldn't need to go through this whole unpleasant experience.
And then my husband complained that in the second leg of the trip he is sitting at the back of the first cabin. I told him to quit his complaining and just come home and if he had any issues he could call up Air France himself. grrrrr....
This past week, N is in a location where he can't call up the airlines for making seat and meal request confirmations and so I, Agent Smitha, was given the responsibility to do so.
First issue, we didn't really know who we were supposed to call. When he had checked in on Saturday, he had to go to the Air France counter. He had bought the ticket with Delta Airlines, the flight was being operated by KLM and for some reason Air France was taking care of check-in. (We only then learned that Air France had bought over KLM like 4 years ago!)! Well, whatever seat and meal arrangements he had made with Delta, never showed up on Air France computers. Actually, he had made the arrangements with KLM, since he did see that it was operated by KLM. Anyway, the Air France representative said KLM is bad with these things, and they always have an issue. For the return she suggested to call Air France to fix up the arrangements as she saw that they were the ones operating the return, all the way.
So, this is where I entered the picture. I called Air France on Thursday. It took them half an hour to connect me to an agent. Ok, 25 minutes only. And then the representative said, that she was seeing two bookings and so she wouldn't know which one to fix. She shared that I would need to call up Delta to get that fixed.
Sure enough, when I logged on to Air France website for itinerary, there were to N's flying on the same flight, but on the Delta website it was all fine. Anyhow, I called up Delta. They said it could be that the travel agent had made two reservations and only confirmed one. So, she gave me one confirmation number to use.
So, again I call up Air France and a nice rep with a French accent answers the call. I take the nice bit back. She was just so annoying, not the accent (I just love the French accent).
I give the reservation code that I have on my itinerary and she right off starts that's a Delta reservations code, and won't work on our system. ummm ok.. that's my problem, how?! There was so much back and forth. The codes I was giving were Delta codes and not Air France codes. At one point she even berated the travel agent my husband has been regularly using via office for the last few years, and with whom we had no problems with. Apparently their system did not show the air miles number. And she gave the whole, "if it were typed in correctly it would show up on our system." I had the itinerary with me and it clearly showed the airmiles number. Hubby also clearly stated that his trip was recorded for miles. That attitude was not necessary when clearly their system has compatibility issues.
By the end of the conversation, I was just tired of the whole phone call. I am generally very patient and understanding when on the phone with customer service people. I have been in their position before but this round they broke two big rules of what I consider professionalism:
1. Passing the blame on to others, right of the bat!
2. Telling the customer that the information they have doesn't work on their system. This is something that Delta, AirFrance, KLM should fix. I give the information I have been given by the airlines.
And if their darned website worked properly we could have just done it online and wouldn't need to go through this whole unpleasant experience.
And then my husband complained that in the second leg of the trip he is sitting at the back of the first cabin. I told him to quit his complaining and just come home and if he had any issues he could call up Air France himself. grrrrr....
