A technologist’s foray into the business world
British Aerospace 146
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It’s with great pleasure that I can announce that we’ve managed to resolve both our claims for compensation with RyanAir and FlyBe. It does show that most companies do have procedures for dealing with the problems that arise from time to time. I do intend to follow up all this with a thank you letter. I think it always makes good sense to give feedback on this sort of event, because this does encourage this sort of repeat behaviour. If you treat companies that give you service like they’re the scum you get out of pond filters, then you can hardly expect to get a decent service, can you!

BAC (ROMBAC) 1-11 Series 561 of Ryanair at Man...
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It’s been just under three weeks since we wrote to both RyanAir and FlyBe about our cancelled flights and subsequent reimbursement and I’m delighted to say that today we received a letter from FlyBe who have reimbursed us for our alternative travel arrangements. I must say I’m really happy with the way they have responded to us and I will be telling all my friends of their great customer ethic.

When I buy something, I’m not one to go for an extended service plan, but if I have a problem I will write to the company in question to see if they will remediate the problem. In this case, it was a service that we had bought, but it was no different; I did write to both companies we had issues with, and it’s great to get a positive response, at least from one of them.

I’ll keep you posted on what happens on the RyanAir front …

Manu Script
Creative Commons License photo credit: kevinzim

Well, it’s been 2 weeks since I sent my complaint to the airlines, one to RyanAir and one to FlyBe; and I still haven’t had a reply or even an acknowledgement for my letter. So tomorrow I’ll be posting another copy of the letters to see if I can get the ball rolling. I don’t know if I’ll be getting a positive response, I was expecting some sort of acknowledgement. It’s not like I’m sending spam about the best acne remedy around; I probably wouldn’t expect a response from that.

As a customer, it’s quite annoying to be ignored by a company I have given my money to. I’m quite keen to try and get to the bottom of this.

RyanAir vs FlyBe

A Ryanair Boeing 737-800 on take-off
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So, we had an interesting experience on our recent holiday to Malta, having cancelled flights with both FlyBe and RyanAir. Anyway, we had to make alternative travel arrangements in both cases, and I’ve just written to them expecting reimbursement for our cancellation, as per EU Regulations. It will be interesting to see what responses I get from each one and what process they will try and implements.

It was quite a harrowing experience, having to change airports and reroute while travelling with 2 newborn twins, a 3-year old and a pile of luggage. It’s going to take more than hair vitamins to get the stress out of my hair (what’s left of it) this time! And now I have to deal with the airlines. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

British Aerospace 146
Image via Wikipedia

It’s interesting to see FlyBe preparing for a stock market flotation with a company valuation of £300 million. If you’ve never heard of them (I guess if you’re out of Europe they’ll be new to you), they’re a discount airline which has spread from humble roots to routes all over Europe.

Their website is quite intuitive, after all, you’re not looking for a life insurance online quote, but they do try to attach extra charges for everything but the kitchen sink along the way. Still, the market must be loving it, if they think there’s so much value.

They’ve tried to get off the ground twice already, well, you know what they say, third time lucky. We’ll see how the market plays this one.

Testing Flybe

British Aerospace 146, to be replaced from 200...

Well, a couple of days ago we got back from Malta and found a great big crack in one of our luggages. Ok, it wasn’t a Rimowa, or anything special; but I was quite fond of it and well, it takes a pretty substantial amount of force to break a hard case. Anyway, we filed a PIR and are now waiting for feedback from Flybe. It will be interesting to see how FlyBe progress the case and how it will be resolved. I’ll keep you posted!

Anyone else had their bag damaged while travelling?

 

About Me

Owen has a background grounded in application development and technology consultancy but today focuses on helping organisations make best use of technology, processes and people to provide maximum satisfaction to clients, employees and other stakeholders.