Stranded Minor Confronted with Poor Service

September 5, 2014

in Airport Stories

My flight TG433 from Jakarta to Bangkok got cancelled. Normal enough. The whole Jakarta to Bangkok flight that normally flies everyday got cancelled for a week, without any email notifications. This was around the end of June 2014.

I was a female minor travelling alone going home from a summer camp. A host family dropped me off at CGK airport and left. I noticed that my flight wasn’t on the board, so I went to look around. All Thai Airways counters were closed. I asked the staff for help. They had no clue. A large number shook their head and muttered in broken English, “No speak English.”

Like a reasonable person I decided to go to the airline’s office. It was evening around 5:50 pm. Not a single soul was in sight at the office. I experienced the joys of Ramadan – let’s all take a crap on customer service and go celebrate eating somewhere after fasting when the ball of fire is in the sky. I understand; after fasting you want to go eat. So you get your ass out of that stuffy office and you go celebrate being able to swallow food down your throat without feeling guilty. However after a time I stopped being so understanding. I waited for an hour and no one came to work. I wasn’t even there at an unreasonable time. Why do they even get paid?

After finding out how bad the people were at their jobs, I got out of that secluded area and went back to the check in area. I walked all over the airport again. I finally found a non-nondescript desk; apparently I was supposed to go there hours ago. It was so obvious; go to the dirty old desk with no signs and two middle age men sitting behind two computers. With a stroke of luck I went to talk to them about my situation. After acting like normal considerate people they told me to come back tomorrow. They kindly put me on a waiting list with a low priority tab attached to my name. I pointed that out; they kindly fixed it.

As a female minor travelling alone they found accommodation for the night for me. “We can put you into an airport hotel room with other people.” That’s what they said. No offers of food or anything else. I didn’t want to barge into a room with strangers. I refused their generous offers and called a friend to pick me up. With luck I could get home the next day. Waiting for my friend, I decided to check out the deal I got offered. I went to the haunted, dirty, run-downed hotel they were going to dump me in. I asked if there were any rooms available; there were tons. Cheap shits.

Fast forward. The next day I finally got back home to Thailand. My parents tried to settle out the compensation with Thai Airways. Mailed Thai Airways – got no reply. Spam mailed Thai Airways – they ignored our complaints. Couldn’t get compensation or even a single reply.

Anyone want to fly Thai? Experience CGK awesome airport customer service?

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

bask October 8, 2014 at 6:22 am

yes me

Reply

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