[JamesMoloney5]

Ah yes………..the sting in the tail……the old “tell him what he wants to hear and maybe he will go away” clause in the Air France Customer service handbook……the “we’ve had his money now tell him to p**s off and stop bothering us over one silly suitcase” attitude that I am beginning to realise is typical of Air France.

I called them again today, three days after they told me my case “appears to be in Dublin” and will be with the delivery company, and guess what i got? “But non, Monsieur Moloney, your bag has not been sent to Dublin….who told you that pack of lies…..it is still somewhere in Paris airport”

Can you believe the incompetence….in fact I am running out of really, really bad words to use about Air France management that will not break the forum etiquette rules………I can think of some words i would love to use, ones that sound like bankers, muckwits, stickheads, but if I used the words that sound like those I could get into trouble…….

Following this rather heated exchange on the phone I decided to take matters into my own hands and drove into Dublin, to Dawson Street, where the AF offices are. But, hey, they’re not there anymore, so off to the airport I go to find the AF customer service desk….but hey….they don’t have one…only Skyhandling, who conveniently said they only sell tickets and don’t handle customer complaints. However….a glimmer of hope…they told me to go to the lost baggage telephones beside the Juice Bar and to call their baggage staff and someone would come out to meet me and discuss my problem.

I legged it down to the Juice Bar, found the two phones, checked the wallchart and dialed ‘1″ for Air France/Skyhandling…..waited thirty seconds, no answer…….dialed again, no answer, waited another five minutes, dialed again, no answer……but then, how stupid of me…this is Air France I am trying to contact.

I have googled their General Manager for UK & Ireland and i will try to contact him (Henri Hourclade) tomorrow and ask him why Air France does not exist in any shape or form in Ireland, if it is supposed to be such an important market, as they claim on their website.

Even the aircraft they fly into Dublin from CDG are not French aircraft…..they are all Irish aircraft operated and crewed by an Irish company (Cityjet) and Irish crews, just painted in the good old blue, white and red…..

It’s a total hands-off operation, so now wonder they don’t give a duck about their Irish customers…….ooops, there’s another one of those words again……

[Potakas]

James,

I don’t know if i have to feel sorry for you or for Air France, i just know that each airliner reflects what its country’s culture is (And this can help everyone to choose his/her preferred airline very easy) .. and i don’t mean the Irish crews.. It is like when you are in France and no-one speaks English.

As i don’t want to get offensive just with French people, once i was flying with Aegean Airlines and i received my bag in a very bad condition, i had bought it one month ago, the answer i received on the customer desk was something like : ” yes, but your bag can close and the wheels seem to be ok ” , The problem i had beyond the scratches was that the base of one wheel was almost broken.. The time i was rolling my bag for my next trip the wheel broke..

My Girlfriend had her bag damaged (flying with BA) and she went to the customer desk at Edi’s airport, they asked her how much you bag worth and then they provided to her a list of bags that she was able to order. After 6 days the new bag was at home.

James, i hope that you will get out of this as soon as possible and although this is a very frustrating situation i can imagine that now is getting even worst as you are dealing with people that they are telling you lies…

Regards

[esselle]

Just picked up this thread because of the initial referance to Henri Hourcade, le grand fromage of AF in the UK.

I got so fed up with the torture of the electronic complaints system that AF use that I tracked down HH’s email address and sent him a note.

I immediately received a mail delivery failure notification which said

“mail to <a href="mailto:[email protected]“>[email protected] rejected for policy reasons”

Brilliant!

[JamesMoloney5]

It seems as though they reject everything for one reason or another…..it was impossible to talk to anybody who was not “reading the standard response from the manual”…………..I have maintained my stance of never flying with them again.

My luggage eventually arrived at the original Dublin destination back in the second week in February, almost four weeks after I had returned home to Thailand….I guess I should be thankful that it arrived, and intact at that

[JamesMoloney5]

It seems as though they reject everything for one reason or another…..it was impossible to talk to anybody who was not “reading the standard response from the manual”…………..I have maintained my stance of never flying with them again.

My luggage eventually arrived at the original Dublin destination back in the second week in February, almost four weeks after I had returned home to Thailand….I guess I should be thankful that it arrived, and intact at that

[Swindoneric]

I doubt that any airline covers itself with glory in terms of locating lost baggage but in my experience Air France is worst. My bags were lost travelling from Edinburgh to Amsterdam to Nice earlier this year. I suppose I’d asked for it really – travelling on a business trip in jeans is always tempting fate. I arrived in Nice on day one at 5pm sans bagage. Was told that the bag had been located in Amsterdam immediately and would follow “as soon as possible”. My definition of this would be the next flight, about 3 hours later. Theirs was 10pm the next evening, by which time I’d stocked up with new clothes. Pretty impossible to contact and when I actually managed to speak to someone they couldn’t have cared less. Hopeless.

[DanDare1975]

AF’s sister airline KLM is no better at this in my experience. My bag got lost in Schiphol a couple of years ago when I connected there en-route to Boston. It took them 2 days to find the bag, which had got lost, fallen off a baggage cart, and was then run over by a baggage truck! The bag and it’s contents were all but destroyed, nothing was salvagable. Repeated complaints produced a standard unhelpful response and no compensation. Not that it makes any difference, but I will never use AF or KL voluntarily again as a result. They are completely unfamiliar with the term ‘customer service’.

[Tete_de_cuvee]

From todays news feeds –
Gourgeon said to be stepping down at Air France – KLM and to be replaced by Alexandre de Juniac former chief of staff to Christine Lagarde

One would hope a more emotionally intelligent person should address the service issue.

[Senator]

Once again, I seem to end up with completely different experience than most. This summer, 50k miles had evaporated and I contacted the FB number. They said to send an email to the customer care, and in less than 24hrs issue resolved with sincere apology and I got on with my booking.

[Swindoneric]

I’ve also had some great flights with Air France and KLM but have been let down re baggage more times at CDG than I ever was with BA in the worst of the bad old T4/T1 days at Heathrow.

[Author]

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