Whereas I believe many people have low expectations when reaching out to airline customer support, this would possibly simply take the cake because the worst response I’ve ever seen…
SWISS blames points on a aircraft it doesn’t fly
X/Twitter consumer @maxdiamondny was on a SWISS flight from New York (JFK) to Geneva (GVA) in mid-Could that was canceled on account of a technical fault. Whereas most individuals don’t prefer to have their flight canceled, there was a silver lining — the cancelation certified for EU261 compensation, entitling him to €600 in money compensation.
So he submitted the request with the airline by way of the suitable kind, solely to obtain a denial. When he adopted up, the SWISS consultant doubled down, and wrote the next:
Thanks in your response. Please settle for my apologizes for the delay in my response.
I remorse my message of 04 June 2024 didn’t meet your expectations.
Your flight has been reviewed and as suggested beforehand, your flight was cancelled on account of a results of Rudder Servo Fault on account of vulnerability of the 737 major rudder servo valve to inflicting uncommanded reversals was certainly a big concern. I hope you’ll be able to perceive now we have no management over such circumstances.
Due to this fact, I remorse that you’re not eligible for compensation in accordance with the regulation EU 261/2004.
Though I effectively perceive your irritation in view of your expertise, I hope you perceive that I can not grant a beneficial to your request for the explanations defined.
I’m sorry, however what?!? There’s a lot flawed with this that I don’t even know the place to start:
- The flight in query was operated by an A330, and never a 737; for that matter, SWISS doesn’t even have the 737 in its fleet
- Within the Nineteen Nineties, the 737 did have a rudder situation that induced deadly accidents, although that was totally corrected *checks notes* over 20 years in the past
- Even when this have been brought on by a technical situation with the plane, that completely would qualify for EU261 compensation
How do you even provide you with such a lie?!?
The above response is so unhealthy that it borders on being comical. The worst half is that this isn’t even the corporate’s first response to the client, however quite it’s the second response, after he known as them out for his or her first poor response.
I want it have been an remoted incident for an airline to attempt to deny paying out authorities mandated compensation. Sadly it’s not, and these sorts of lies are all too frequent. The one factor that’s shocking right here is simply how absurd the lie is, blaming it on an plane the airline doesn’t even fly, with an issue that existed 30 years in the past and induced deadly accidents. What’s subsequent — in a number of years, will SWISS be blaming flight cancelations on 9/11?
Clearly it might be best for customer support brokers to only, you understand, present customer support, and situation the compensation that the federal government mandates. So how will we get to the purpose the place an A330 cancelation is blamed on a 737 rudder failure from a long time in the past?
- Does administration simply inform staff to make up actually any excuse they will provide you with, regardless of how nonsensical?
- Even worse, how can an agent declare they reviewed the file, and confirmed that this was certainly the right purpose?
- Are customer support staff paid a fee on what number of claims they will deny?
May any airline worker who has information of those sorts of conditions (anonymously) share how this occurs? Are customer support brokers simply advised to make up no matter excuse they’d like, or does the airline present an inventory of made up causes that they will copy and paste?
That is extremely unethical at greatest, and unlawful at worst. For the jurisdictions which have shopper protections and mandate compensation, it might be good if there have been an enforcement mechanism for making certain airways don’t attempt to violate legal guidelines.
Backside line
G
What do you make of this SWISS denial?
