THE?VEXED PROBLEM of reliable travel within our region and the place of LIAT in that exercise was painfully drawn to our collective attention this past week when a sickout by the airline’s pilots evidenced the cruciality of the airline.
Thousands of people were stranded by the sickout; many a would-be passenger set to come home for the holidays or eager to do business, frustrated by the circumstances – these travellers who quietly keeping our regional economies going.
We are not concerned at this point with the reason for the strike, nor about who is right or wrong; for strikes will occur from time to time, and the element of surprise will often catch many companies unawares.
Rather our concern is about the level of service rendered to passengers, once it became clear the strike or sickout would take place. Contingency plans to assist passengers should have been in place!
The nature of travel especially at this time makes it inevitable that many passengers will be taking flights simply for the purpose of getting home for Christmas. It is also very likely that many passengers would be caught in midstream so to speak, sometimes without the necessary extra funding to make themselves comfortable for one night, far less two.
Can it be good customer service that little or nothing is done by the company to help these stranded passengers, while they are left sleeping on benches at airports across the region?
One group of passengers at Grantley Adams International Airport alleged that the company did not even offer them “a drink of water” or facilitate the making of phone calls to relatives who might have gone to incoming airports to greet them.
One of the passengers stranded was able to pointedly scold the airline on its attitude. She was not impressed and declared curtly that she works as a customer service advisor in Canada and that “there is no way that this is customer service. Customers come first . . . you deal with them”.
She is right. Our regional airline seems to have dropped the ball badly this time.
There is a lesson here for all service providers in our region. Problems will arise within any service enterprise; and once they develop, attention to the needs of customers becomes first priority.
It is the bane of many of our regional enterprises that service
to customer is not given the rank it demands. It was therefore not surprising that the police had to be called in to quell disorder when some LIAT flights resumed from our airport.
LIAT must not allow its relatively protected position to lull it into less than excellent customer service!
