Open Letter to Iberia Airlines
December 23rd, 2009 | Published in Business | 3 Comments
Dear Iberia Airlines,
Tonight, you have made the day before Christmas Eve a hell hole.
I arrived at the Madrid-Barajas airport around 7:25PM expecting to leave on Flight 3618 on time to arrive in Rome and enjoy what was left of my day with my mother’s aunt, the only relative I have in the area to spend Christmas with because I simply couldn’t afford to go home to Chapel Hill, NC.
Now, here’s where the complaints start; Firstly, the plane is delayed with no information sent to the display screens in the Madrid airport. About 30-45 minutes later Flight 3618 is displayed as Canceled. So instead of rushing to the customer service desk like the 1000 other stranded clients, I decide to wait for the line to die down and be a patient customer, because I figure, “hey, who knows this flight might appear magically, and I’ll have my seat.”
Sure enough I finish my beer and sandwich (which is the only think keeping me from losing my mind right now, a full tummy) and I see the departures list with my flight leaving at 04:40 from gate H16 in Terminal 4 of MAD. At around 22:40 I decide to go take a nap at gate H16 so when 04:15 comes around I will be good to go for my flight.
No, I arrive at the gate at 22:50 (because if you haven’t been in the Madrid-Barajas airport, terminal 4 is about 1KM long, no lie) only to find that my flight had departed at 22:35.
I want answers:
- How does a departures list not say the proper time? (I have filed a complaint with the airport)
- And why, when on a day there are no planned strikes, are there such delays and problems between two countries that have had the best weather in the past few weeks?!
- When you know things are going to go wrong; why don’t you have more than 10 people working for customer service. You need to up the numbers and seriously. About 1000 people are grounded waiting for flights, food vouchers and what not.
You wonder why you post an approx. net loss of 16.4M€? Because you can’t keep your unions happy, and when you can’t get your flights off the ground, you’re spending money for the pains people pay in the airport; ie: food, hotels, drinks. Even in the form of vouchers you’re losing.
Stop Losing
Please, I would like to fly with Iberia again, but I simply cannot. I write this open letter so that I hope many others can understand the disorganization of such a company. I want to see this company do well, post in the green again, but with such disorganization, I can’t encourage it and nor can thousands of others.
I am so sorry for you Iberia.
Posted via web from Greg’s posterous
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