Letter: Dismayed at lack of empathy

Contributed

David Kneebone

I recently was booked on a flight with Air Chathams, flying Whakatāne to Auckland .

The scheduled departure was 9.10am. Driving from Ōhope to the airport proved to be a fraught trip, with a number of road works slowing my progress .

I arrived inside the terminal at 8.46am, 24 minutes prior to the scheduled departure.

An elderly woman had arrived a few minutes prior to me, also booked on the flight.

As I was walking into the terminal I could see passengers embarking the plane, which was about 30 metres away.

The elderly woman, it transpires, was a cancer patient, undergoing treatment for her condition.

She was also delayed by the roadworks and had arrived 27 minutes prior to departure.

Air Chathams refused us both permission to board the flight.

The last of the boarding passengers were still on the runway waiting to board the flight as the Air Chathams representative was refusing us permission to board the small aircraft .

I had no bags. The elderly, sick woman had one bag.

We were advised by the Air Chathams representative that the gate had closed exactly 30 minutes prior to departure as per the conditions of our tickets.

The Air Chathams representative was entirely correct in that we had contravened our side of the agreement by arriving 3 and 6 minutes late, respectively. It was particularly distressing for me to witness this frail, elderly and unfailingly polite woman refused boarding on this flight to be with her family in Auckland.

Air Chathams did have the right to refuse boarding.

The reason given for not allowing us on the flight was: “The pilot wants to get away 10 minutes early.”

Sure enough, at 9am – 10 minutes earlier than the scheduled departure of 9.10 am – the little plane headed off to Auckland without us.

Fortunately, an empathetic friend made other arrangements to get back to his home in the Waikato and lent me his car. I took advantage of his generosity and was able to drive myself and this lovely woman to Auckland.

Air Chathams website, among other promotional material, state the following:

“At Air Chathams above and beyond simply means ABOVE the clouds we go BEYOND to make you one of our family in the sky!”

“We are a customer-focused and solution orientated airline, who thrive on being innovative problem solvers”

I have travelled on more than 60 airlines, all over New Zealand and around the world.  Many a time has the captain announced that there will be a small delay as we are waiting on a passenger to board.

This is the first time I have missed a flight (yes, I was late), but I have to say, I was dismayed at the total lack of empathy my “family in the sky” showed this day .

Air Chathams chief commercial officer Duane Emeny responds:

WE certainly do try and live our core values, which are tied to great and service and connecting communities. On this occasion it is clear that two passengers were likely late for the flight, and I would need to understand the context from our Whakatāne based team.

However, in my experience our team are usually very good at popping out to the plane and asking the captain if he/she can accept some late passengers. Given that this did not happen there may have been other circumstances on the day that required the crew to depart as soon as able ie. Crew duty requirements etc.

Whilst we do our best to provide an amazing service daily from all our key regions, sometimes we don’t always succeed and key customers are left disappointed.

However, I am very confident that our team have a strong service culture (especially in Whakatāne) and would have done what they felt they realistically could have to make this all work.

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