Air France: Excellent behavior on board, very bad treatment in Bucharest airport…
Having signed a deal of several millions of euro, I had the best “medicine” for my mood yesterday morning. My client obtained what he was searching for a couple of years, the owner was relieved as he finally liquidated his property at a fair price and received the “desired” cash, the owner’s agent had a sparkling smile, as she got paid her commission and realized that I didn’t try to remove her from the deal. So, everyone was happy. I had to be late to my next meeting, which made me feel uncomfortable, but when it’s a deal to be signed, you never know how much time you need for this (which means that still the mistake was mine).
Bad surprise at the airport
I was happy to arrive at the airport around 14.00, so as to fly to Paris and from there to Cannes. After many years I didn’t, I decided to fly by Air France and I headed to their check in counters, having an excellent mood. It was a very bad surprise for me to discover that there are still Romanians who don’t even have 1% respect to their client. I was sent to a lady, brunette, short, cute, with a pink thing in her hair, who probably had some kind of personal problems and she didn’t know how to express her anger. In the beginning she didn’t know what was my Greek ID card (a colleague of hers came to help). Then she looked at me strange when I asked for seats at emergency exit row (and later on I found out that the plane was empty, so no need to be upset for this…). In the beginning I tried to smile, even told her that we go to an exhibition to promote Romania (she didn’t care of course…)
After she counted the kilos of our 3 luggage. They were 48, while the limit for 2 persons is 40. She looked at me like she was talking to someone inferior and threatened me saying in a very rude attitude “you have extra 10 kilos. If you don’t remove something from the bag, then you have to pay and if you don’t pay I don’t allow you to take this bag with you, it will stay here”. “Miss, I am sorry, are you upset or something? What is your problem? You have already sent our first 2 bags, so practically we don’t even have the chance to reorganize and leave something behind. We will pay”. “I don’t know what you will do, but if you don’t pay, this one doesn’t leave”.
200 euro for 10 (8) kilos…
I found out that I was charged for 10 kilos, not 8, and each kilo costs 20 euro (!) and I have to pay 200 euro in total! She was looking at me with such hate, that I was surprised. A colleague of hers came too, so as to… help and make sure that his company will not lose the 200 euro penalty (although I didn’t ask this). I took the paper and went to pay. There I found out that the officer didn’t accept one of the 100 euro notes I gave (which I had received by the bank last week), because he decided so. So, without the correct 200 euro they wanted, I would not be able to fly…
When I returned back to the check in counter and asked that woman to give me her name, she laughed, turned her back to me and started walking. Her colleagues said that they are not obliged to tell me anything, as I can see their name on their badges. But her badge was turned from the other side and I couldn’t see the name at all. You should see her happiness and also her colleague’s, when they didn’t want to give me their names. I am sure they felt very important; probably even proud for trying to humiliate “a foreigner who smiles too much”.
Of course I didn’t let them ruin my mood. And even if I would have wanted this, Air France crew was SO polite, that really made me feel very good. They treated all passengers in a way that I don’t really see usually and their whole behavior was making everyone feel comfortable, even when they announced that we will arrive late to our destination. This happened in both flights, connecting Bucharest with Nice via Paris.
Dear managers of Air France in Romania, don’t you think it’s the time either to train better your people or to choose employees who will be happy to respect their clients and protect the excellent name and reputation your company has created throughout the years? Isn’t it a pity for a company like yours to allow to some people to treat clients like they make them a favor to provide them with a ticket (for which they probably paid a lot)?
PS.1. The plane was almost half empty. Except the financial crisis, is it possible this to happen due to some people’s bad behavior, people who get in contact with clients? Because especially in this period of World crisis, the last thing that a passenger accepts is to be treated bad…
PS.2. Many of you may say “why do you bother writing so much about some people who simply don’t have manners?”. Simply because I believe that Romania has endless important and serious people, whose work is damaged by people without respect to the others around. And as I care a bit about this place called Romania, I will not stop stating my opinion…