Features

Frequent traveller: Heaven sent

26 Jan 2012 by BusinessTraveller

In which our correspondent discovers hope is not lost for weary travellers seeking a little understanding...

Lately, I’ve had a lot of bad travel experiences and, to be honest, was beginning to lose my enthusiasm for this nomadic life. The time away from home, absences from loved ones, missing children’s concerts and birthdays, friends’ weddings… all of that I couldn’t care less about. No, what was threatening to damage my travel mojo was the sheer lack of proper customer service I encountered on my trips.

Sometimes it seemed as if I’d flown halfway around the world just to suffer the sort of attitude I get at my local gym. Ignored at the desk, untidy facilities, being milked like a cash cow – no wonder I’ve ended up puffing and red-faced like I’ve just done 10km on the treadmill. Perhaps gratitude is too much to ask for from companies I (or at least my firm) pay tens of thousands of pounds to each year, but a little recognition and a sincere thank you would be good. Don’t they know who I am?

But things were about to turn around. The story begins in New York, where I had just spent two days dealing with distracted staff, long queues and not so much as a “Have a nice day”. I needed to be in Germany the next morning, and I have to say, I was looking forward to some nice stereotypical German efficiency.

The night before, I looked at my ticket – not one of my trusty mile-earning regulars but Air Berlin to Dusseldorf. I thought my assistant was winding me up. I didn’t even know they had a plane that could fly that far, let alone have a scheduled long-haul route. I know things are tough in the corporate world, but still – does the budget not stretch to Lufthansa these days?

So there I am, sitting in a new plane decked out in Aeroflot-style lounge décor, elbow to elbow with my American colleague. I’m pretty sure I know what the journey has in store – a gruesome sleepless night, aching limbs, swollen feet, no in-flight entertainment, grey meat and nothing but some lukewarm Liebfraumilch to get me through it.

Pic: Ben Southan

Except we weren’t going anywhere. Half an hour after the supposed departure time, the pilot came on and nattered away in German, after which the whole cabin collectively exhaled a groan. I turned to my colleague and predicted a three-hour delay. The captain then did the English version, explaining that because of storm cells we would be delayed by… three hours. (I either listened a bit more in my school German lessons than I thought, or I’ve really been in this game too long.)

Before the pilot could finish his broadcast, my colleague had jumped up, grabbed his carry-on luggage and was racing to get off before the door closed. This is the sign of a very experienced Zen master traveller, since if the door closes and you move so much as an inch you are deemed to be in an international zone and must go back through immigration if you de-board. I followed him at double-quick speed, knowing our German client meeting was effectively cancelled.

He headed back into New York but I decided to get myself on to a British Airways flight as it codeshared with Air Berlin (who knew?) and wait in the BA lounge at JFK Terminal 7. I took the Airtrain there, which was clean, cool and efficient (plus taxis probably wouldn’t have taken me between terminals because of the meagre distance and fare), and then tried to rebook to London with BA.

Normally, this would be where it all went wrong. But it didn’t. The clouds parted and in a serene moment a beautiful shaft of warm light beamed down and illuminated the path to my angel. At the ticketing desk, BA’s customer service representative coped where my travel department could not. She waited beyond her shift end, took my late booking, got me on to the next available flight and walked me through the long security check all the way to the gate. She was smart, social, and completely understood that unreasonable, demanding, self-important and stressed business travellers scream for attention, yet are still customers worth tolerating.

I was so impressed – no, strike that, amazed, given the experiences I’ve recently endured – that I wrote a letter to BA’s chairman to praise her and to encourage him to employ thousands more like her. If they did, no one would ever travel with any other airline. Who knows, they may even be sufficiently encouraged to use the Avios programme?

And you know what? I was back in JFK two weeks later and my angel spotted me, remembered my name, and we chatted as if we were both human beings instead of traveller and gatekeeper. I think it’s given me back my flying mojo.

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