mabunji said:
Thanks Jobu – Terrific - Happy to stand at the front of the queue of the cynics
Not sure I understand what you are talking about here mabunji - what's so terrific? Are you trying to soften up what follows?
mabunji said:
I have re-read your letter of complaint, and your subsequent posts to this forum. I am still mightily confused on a number of points.
I will do my best to help your confusion - for leaving you confused is the last thing I want to do.
mabunji said:
I am still struggling to understand what possible reason staff at SGN had to treat you in such a shabby way. Have you formed an opinion on the subject ?. Do you believe it is a systemic problem with staff at this location ?. Do you believe you were singled out for such appalling treatment, and if so why ?..
Yes I have formed an opinion on the subject: a combination of bad luck on my behalf combined with a lack of training on their behalf. I do not believe that I was singled out, in fact as I pointed out there were other passengers who arrived after me which this happened to as well.
mabunji said:
SQ are operating 17 flights a week out of SGN on 777-200’s, (roughly 255,000 to 285,000 seats a year) . Similar to Qantas, SQ are averaging around 80% seat occupancy – i.e. SQ is most likely flying around 204,000 to 228,000 passengers on this route. Let’s assume that there is a systemic problem at SGN and that (say) 1% of passengers are being brutalised by Hoang and his team – we’re looking at 2,000 plus seriously unhappy passengers a year. I don’t believe you can hide this level of discontent – did they all choose not to ’make a fuss’, or wait 6 months before sticking a letter in the post ?.
As Yada Yada said, not everyone complains, and not everyone understands their rights.
mabunji said:
I’m still not entirely happy at the six month delay in lodging a complaint with SIA. I understand that you had work commitments and were flat out. If it was me I would have been drafting a letter of complaint on the flight out of SGN, …. or while waiting for the connection in SIN, …. or on the flight back to Australia (basically while the details were fresh in my mind). If I didn’t have a laptop at hand I would have been writing longhand – it would have been a simple typing exercise to transfer the longhand doc into a Microsoft Word (20 – 25 minutes ?), and if I was still stuggling to find that 20 – 25 minutes over a period of 6 months I think I would have sent the letter of complaint off in the clumsy, smudgy longhand format regardless. Six months does seem extreme to me.
I think that you have missed the point. The fact that it took 6 months to write a complaint is almost irrelevant. My complaint here is about the treatment I received from staff both in Vietnam and in Australia, and how they handled my complaint. On the flight home, I jotted down many details, I had the names of all the people I dealt with written down as well. To be honest I was quite relieved just to be on a flight and I took the opportunity to try and relax rather than keep re-living the experience to make my flight unpleasant.
mabunji said:
This was a flight taken with your wife – I understand you were flat chat for 6 months and were struggling to find the time to formulate your thoughts – is this also true of your wife? You were both mistreated in a horrible way – and both of you are in a position to lodge a letter of complaint. I apologise if this is an indelicate question, but is there a reason why your wife could not have done this? - a complaint from either of you would have carried equal weight.
Again I refer you above - this is irrelevant, but I will elaborate here for your own benefit. My wife was currently pregnant at this time. Our last pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage, and I was doing EVERYTHING I could to avoid my wife having to bare any stress whatsoever. Which with the circumstances we encountered was quite tricky in itself. I told her to leave it to me.
mabunji said:
In the very, very broadest of terms do you understand the difficulty of attempting to resolve a complaint six months after the event has elapsed ?. I think this basically goes to the heart of your secondary grievance against staff in Australia. If you had presented your complaint in a timely manner it would still have come down to your word against the staff in SGN. After 6 months? forget it. You claim there was ‘another passenger from Perth’ in the queue behind who could vouch for you being on time – great – did you get his/her details? – it would go a long way to giving your complaint some credibility. Again, you were required to phone Singapore to get your flights confirmed – the SIA staff in Singapore apparently spoke to staff in SGN and ‘told them off’. Terrific – this again gives you some credibility in your complaint. Referring back to your letter I am not seeing any mention of this – did you get their name to include in the complaint? Mate, you’re not doing yourself any favours here.
Ok let me clarify a few things for you here:
a. I was not seeking any "resolution" to my complaint. What on earth could SIA offer me to "resolve" my complaint? The only possible thing that I may have accepted is some understanding, empathy and an apology. And even then I may have never used them again. So what exactly does this have to do with a 6 month time difference?
b. My word against their word - whether it is the next day or 6 months later - this does not change anything.
c. The other passenger - yes I have his name and his contact details. The supervisor I spoke to on the phone in Singapore - yes I have his name as well - but Singapore didn't even try to address my complaint so it became irrelevant. My complaint didn't need any more credibility, it had more than enough.
d. My letter could have been better worded - I agree with you here. I am not satisfied with it, but as you have seen from the facts that have come out over the course of several posts I have made here, it would have been a thesis had I included all the information. It was significantly toned down to remove as much emotion as I could from my original letter, as I wanted it to be as factual as possible. At the end of the day, it was a complaint letter and I had all the information at hand to provide to Singapore had they actually decided that they would try and investigate it. But they didn't.
e. My wife works at a major bank. When customers complain over 12 months after an incident, it is still considered a valid complaint and investigated fully. If Singapore wanted to investigate the matter, they could have looked up on their system (a) how full the flight was (b) were any waitlisted passengers allowed on board (c) was the flight oversold (d) what time were the last passengers checked in (because we were right behind them) (e) did they receive any other complaints for that flight. 6 months does not invalidate any of this information.
mabunji said:
I understand that you are filthy on Singapore Airlines. Fair Enough. What was your purpose in writing a letter of complaint? What did you hope to achieve?. What could SIA ever have done to satisfy your complaints ?. When the Sydney based manager phoned (assuming that he had dialed the number himself, adopted the tone of voice you were expecting , and correcting whatever else he did on this occasion to aggrevate you) – what was he required to deliver to make you happy ?. Were you looking for a financial settlement ? Were you looking for disciplinary action against the supervisor and other staff ?. It is not clear from your posts what you were expecting from lodging a complaint. What would have made you happy?
I thought it was fairly clear on my earlier post when I said:
"And finally, I will say, that had I received a good, positive response from Singapore, had they called me and expressed concern, understanding, empathy, whatever, had they dealt with my complaint more seriously and just apologised, I may, just may, have flown with them again one day."
I don't understand why people automatically assume I'm after some restitution. Perhaps that's why complaints seem to be handled so defensively. I didn't get my lawyer to write the letter. It just needed someone with basic, common sense and a clue about what working in a service industry is all about to respond to my complaint.
mabunji said:
I don’t know whether you have a legitimate complaint against Singapore Airlines – all we have is a seriously one-sided complaint with a number of unresolved issues (and SIA and the staff in SGN do not get the right of reply in this forum).
Are you for real? Why don't you call up Singapore and get their view on the story. How can my complaint not be legitimate? I can only assume you can only be insinuating that I am lying, because the circumstances that I described in my letter and subsequent posts are APPALLING by almost any standard, never mind in a SERVICE industry. How can my letter not be "one-sided" - should I call each person I dealt with and ask them to provide comments on my letter before submitting it? With all due respect, complaining about such poor treatment in any service industry is always legitimate; what you wrote above is ridiculous.
mabunji said:
What happened on that day in SGN? Is there a conspiracy between SIA management and SGN staff or is it a simple cough Up?. My money favours the cough Up theory. The way that you pursued this complaint really gave SIA no chance to put things right. Were SIA at fault at some stage? Perhaps. What is clear is that you never really gave the airline a fair opportunity to resolve the issue.
Did I ever say suggest a conspiracy? In fact, I agree with you, it was a cough up - it was a cough up when I was checking in, it was a cough up when I spoke to their supervisor after the flight had left, it was a cough up when they refused to confirm my flights the next day, it was a cough up when they called me to complain about my complaint. It was a major cough up.
To say that they had no chance to put things right is absurd - you have read all my posts but have you paid attention? The way I pursued my complaint gave them ample opportunity to address it.
mabunji said:
Finally. Singapore Airlines have an excellent online check in facility. 48 hours beforehand you could have have checked in and reserved the seats of your choice. There didn’t need to be a problem here.
I was on holiday in Vietnam. I did not have internet access, nor did I need it or want it. I had a confirmed flight home and that entitles me to check in at the airport. Your comment above is neither helpful nor warranted.
I hope this clears up your confusion.
