Air Travels — The Maya of Punctuality
In an era where the punctuality of flights is a big “achievement,” some delays become unacceptable for the passengers.
Aren’t flights expected to be on time?
Some flight announcements on on-time departures/arrival times sound at though they are doing us a favor.
Flight may land on time. For the passenger, it is the on-time exit from the aircraft, not waiting for the bus but using the aerobridge instead, quick arrival of luggage, and getting out of the airport is punctuality.
Punctuality is what the passenger looks at and not what the airline considers.
When will airlines stop faking customer centricity and professionalism?
Chandra was returning from Mumbai. He had booked a ‘late’ night flight after 8 PM (he is an early-to-bed person). After he reached on time at the airport, got the boarding card, and completed the security check, he realized the ETD showed 2 hours late from the scheduled departure.😱
He felt cheated. He checked the SMS. There was a message from the airline about the 2 hours’ delay in the morning. Chandra was working hard on the task at hand (on a Sunday morning), but he missed the message completely. He accepts the mistake. But what is the role of the airline here in the true spirit of customer-centricity?
The airline staff later indicated it was a technical snag. In an effort to run as many flights as possible, the backup is not sufficient clearly.
As Chandra boarded the flight, the announcement was the gyaan on supporting them for on-time departure 🙈
We are scaling up our air travel infrastructure. But the customer orientation is still on paper. Not matching the global standards.
