The King of good times is nothing but a petty thief!!!
The above statement might sound a little harsh but my recent experience has led me to believe that for all the tall claims that Mr. Vijay Malya makes (in the audio visual on board) does not get translated at the ground level at all.
I am a frequent flyer member of Kingfisher Airlines and decided to patronize the airline for my recent trip to Chennai. I had booked myself on Flight IT 3182 from Chennai to Mumbai on June 12th, 2010. Considering I was traveling only for 3 days I had only a small carry bag which I had checked in (of course duly locked). While packing before my flight, I put in my cell phone as well in the check in baggage and locked the bag. I got my baggage screened and checked in the same at the counter while procuring my boarding pass.
What is important to note here is the fact that the counter staff put in an addition lock from their end as well as stuck a sticker on it for additional safety.
To my horror, when I landed in Mumbai and reached home I found that the lock which the airline staff had put was missing, my lock was open and my cell phone (Nokia E71) was missing. I immediately called on the toll free number and spoke to a lady by the name of Ritika who first told me that she could not do anything for me as she was at the call centre and that they only are equipped to do bookings and nothing else. However on pressurizing her, she told me to go to the Kingfisher counter at the airport and fill a form with the details and they would take suitable action.
I promptly rushed to the airport only to be made run up and down at the terminal by the staff and finally a lady at the Kingfisher counter by the name of Anuradha, very curtly told me that if I suspected that my bag was tampered then I shouldn’t have left the airport before reporting it.
Considering the flight was scheduled to take off at 9.05 am but took off a little late and by the time it landed and I collected by luggage and reached home and reached back at the airport, it was only 1.10 pm in the afternoon. I tried reasoning out with her that the sticker was still intact and it was only when I reached home that I realized that the bag had been tampered, fell to deaf hears and to add insult to my injury, she curtly got up and walked away while I was talking to her!!!
I have a few questions for the so called proclaimer of King of Good Times:
If customer satisfaction is of prime importance, then isn’t grievance handling also a part of it?
If so, then how come there is no mechanism to record or even address the same at all?
The audio visual claims that the staff is handpicked and trained – for what? to meet out such a cold and callous attitude to a loyal customer?
Why put up this farce of safety, if the staff is going to resort to petty thieving???
I don’t know what hurts me more, the loss of the cell (which besides the information loss, had sentimental value attached to it).