Thursday, June 10, 2010

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Those of you who know me know that traveling is in my blood. I enjoy almost every part of visiting the seven continents….except the “getting there” part. How I wish we could be like the Star Trek crew where all we have to do is beam ourselves to the starting point and from the ending point of our trips.


As a person with a strong marketing and advertising background I often question how the airlines care so little about customer service. It is always remarkable to me when I find an airline employee who treats me like they really care about me. When I was a kid, everyone seemed to smile and act as though they wanted this flight to be your best yet. Unfortunately that is gone.


I apologize to my clients for their air endeavors. I have no control over airline policies and procedures. In fact I book them as a courtesy to my clients. They don’t even pay us as travel agents any more. As I hear clients tell me stories about “flying” adventures please note that not only have I heard them all…I’ve lived them all.


There was the 12-day luxury cruise when I had 40 clients with me and the airlines lost my bags…not for two days…for all 12 days of the cruise! Each time I called the airline I got someone reading from the same script. I resorted to, “Pretend it is YOU who is on a cruise and have no clothes to wear? How would YOU feel if no one would help you?” They always went back to their script. If one person had gone to the lost baggage room in the Milan airport like I suggested they would have seen my bag there on day two.


Just today as I checked in to this flight I’m on as I type this, I was told my bag was three pounds overweight. I was going to be charged $50 extra for the three pounds. So I had to open up my bag at the ticket counter and remove a pair of shoes…put it in my carryon and then re-submit my luggage. How ridiculous is that?


I could make this a record blog entry with regard to length but I think you get my point.

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