News Forum - Furious passengers on Thai Smile Airways flight grounded for 2 hours

[Thaiger]

Furious Thai Smile Airways passengers filed a complaint with the Airport of Thailand (AOT) after they were made to wait on a plane at Suvarnabhumi Airport for two hours because of a lack of shuttle buses and drivers. One of the passengers, Amornrat Viriyaroj, shared her experience on Facebook. On Monday, Amornrat travelled from Chaing Rai to Bangkok with Thai Smile Airways, the same airline where Indian passengers fought. The plane took off from Mae Fah Luang Airport in Chiang Rai at 8.20pm and arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok at 10.15pm according to the schedule. The flight attendant informed passengers […]

The story Furious passengers on Thai Smile Airways flight grounded for 2 hours as seen on Thaiger News.

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[Ramanathan.P]

Looks like "Thai Smile Airways" has become "Thai Snail Airways"

[Soidog]

Drives me mad when you arrive at Suvarnabhumi and get taken to a gate where you transfer to a bus. I wouldn’t mind, but as you are taxiing there are loads of empty domestic and international terminal gates with air bridges that are empty and stay empty. Possibly all to do with costs, although just as likely crap airport and airline operations. I hate ALL airlines. They are all poor.
 

I’ve said before, it needs a total paradigm shift in thinking to make air travel easier. The culture of standardisation (hiding behind safety) means they are ALL basically the same. I mean, Jesus H Christ, I still have to be told “This is a non-smoking flight”. Utter garbage ALL of them. No idea what customer service means. 
 

My favourite excuse - “We apologise for the late departure of this flight. This was due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft”. So what, it’s your bloody aircraft so why was it late? It’s like a restaurant saying “Sorry you got food poisoning. It was due to the food not being refrigerated”. Can’t blame the restaurant as the person cooking the food today wasn’t responsible for putting the food in the refrigerator last night. 
 

I literally despise them all - Rant over

[Skip]

So it goes... no one with responsibility to coordinate arrivals with proper tranfer from plane to terminal... very much like the lack of preventative maintenance on anything in Thailand.  Planning ahead is not their strong suit... having a plan B is an unknown action here.

[HiuMak]

These screw ups and excuses...airline always refuse to admit it.

 

[BJoe]

Please……Not enough to DRIVERS !  More likely not enough  “competent”  drivers since the cost of low-skilled labor is not very expensive in Thailand. But it all boils down to management and its ability to delegate tasks and organize efficient teams.

[socal]

The airline industry keeps getting worse and worse. And not just in Thailand. This is a common occurrence everywhere now.

Swampy is the only airport where ive had to board a bus to get to the terminal from the plane every time. why

Why couldn't they just let them walk

Edited January 5, 2023 by socal

[Eddy]

Thai Smile is getting worse week after week. Even so Thai Airways Int'nl, ticket prices are getting outrageous and among the highest in the industry, while services getting  down. Unannounced out of the blue, they stopped their non-stop service between Brussels and Bangkok. 30 years I'm flying Thai but this has recently come to and end. I made a booking last night to Bangkok with another South East Asian carrier for nearly half their fare for the same date. Nuff said.

[Chazz76]

Yes, me to. Thai Airways abandoned the good people of Perth and Brisbane in Australia after years of loyalty to them, even had a Gold Card for several years with them. Still waiting for my refund from 2020, they cost me an award flight last year, wouldn't even extend it to this year after years of flying with them. So for me, Thai Air can go get fornicated, I will now fly with Singapore Airlines who looked after the good people of Perth. And Singapore airfares are half that of the crap Thai Air fares, and we don't have travel 4 hours from Perth to Sydney, stay overnight, get taxis to and from the airports and do it all again on the return journey, with a price nearing $4000AUD. Absolutely ridiculous and pathetic, like how they have become these days. I won't fly with them again unless their is no alternative. 

[JamesR]

21 hours ago, Soidog said:

Drives me mad when you arrive at Suvarnabhumi and get taken to a gate where you transfer to a bus. I wouldn’t mind, but as you are taxiing there are loads of empty domestic and international terminal gates with air bridges that are empty and stay empty. Possibly all to do with costs, although just as likely crap airport and airline operations. I hate ALL airlines. They are all poor.
 

I’ve said before, it needs a total paradigm shift in thinking to make air travel easier. The culture of standardisation (hiding behind safety) means they are ALL basically the same. I mean, Jesus H Christ, I still have to be told “This is a non-smoking flight”. Utter garbage ALL of them. No idea what customer service means. 
 

My favourite excuse - “We apologise for the late departure of this flight. This was due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft”. So what, it’s your bloody aircraft so why was it late? It’s like a restaurant saying “Sorry you got food poisoning. It was due to the food not being refrigerated”. Can’t blame the restaurant as the person cooking the food today wasn’t responsible for putting the food in the refrigerator last night. 
 

I literally despise them all - Rant over

I used to fly to work on a Monday morning, London Heathrow or Stansted to Germany or some other place in Europe. I would fly back on late Friday afternoons. 

I did it for many years and I was happy that on 99% of flights everything went smoothly, I was always surprised how they managed to get it right most of the time.

I also flew between London and New York every month for a year, never a problem. 

So the news today should be a flight was delayed, hundreds of thousand of others were not delayed and so were not reported.

You could walk next time or go by bus or car and see how that compares with flying. 

[Soidog]

1 hour ago, JamesR said:

I used to fly to work on a Monday morning, London Heathrow or Stansted to Germany or some other place in Europe. I would fly back on late Friday afternoons. 

I did it for many years and I was happy that on 99% of flights everything went smoothly, I was always surprised how they managed to get it right most of the time.

I also flew between London and New York every month for a year, never a problem. 

So the news today should be a flight was delayed, hundreds of thousand of others were not delayed and so were not reported.

You could walk next time or go by bus or car and see how that compares with flying. 

And there in lies the problem you see @JamesR. Apathy is at the centre of this problem with airlines. I’m not sure which airline you travelled with but 99% punctuality is not the norm. Additionally, 99% is not a figure to be proud of I’m afraid. Even published punctuality figures are misleading as most reports allow them some slack. A flight which arrives at the gate within 15mins of published arrival times is considered on time. Even an hours flight from London to Manchester can be 25% late and still considered on time. I’m sure official airlines figures also exclude a whole host of late flights that either never flew at all (cancelled) or were delayed “for reasons beyond their control”. 
 

The problems extend well beyond late arrivals and in many ways that’s the least of the problems. Punctuality is a difficult issue to resolve as you wouldn’t want to be in a situation where operators take risks or cut corners. The issue is how they handle things when it goes wrong. Most people are in fact reasonable when things go wrong if they are informed and treated respectfully. How many times do we see a problem at an airport and passengers are left stranded for hours. The most common complaint by passengers is “no one is telling us anything”.  The same is true when airlines are departing late or a problem occurs. Passengers often left on the aircraft for hours, too often without food or water. Ryan Air even attempted to charge for use of toilet facilities onboard! 

Im sorry but deflection and “whataboutery”, such as “if you don’t like it use something else” attitude doesn’t improve customer service in any industry. I suspect you have never worked in customer services? 
 

There is a disconnect between the owners/operator of airline companies and the customers they serve. This attitude has been well demonstrated during Covid and the appalling refund policy of many airlines. It’s a shambolic industry in the area of customer service and governments and regulators around the world need to apply more pressure to sort it out. 

 

[Grumpish]

24 minutes ago, Soidog said:

This attitude has been well demonstrated during Covid and the appalling refund policy of many airlines.

i ended up £800 out of pocket with Lufthansa, first they re-scheduled to a flight with a 28 hour stopover in Frankfurt without telling me, then they cancelled and would only offer a credit which I later found out could only be used against a fare that was two or three times the cost of the lower fares on their website. During the period when there were next to no flights operating quite a few airlines were also continuing to sell tickets for flights that were "scheduled" but which they knew had next to no chance of actually operating. On the subject of punctuality, the worst fudge is that airlines use the roll back time as the time of departure, not the take off time.

[Soidog]

26 minutes ago, Grumpish said:

On the subject of punctuality, the worst fudge is that airlines use the roll back time as the time of departure, not the take off time.

Another of my many pet hates with airlines is that they insist on getting you to the gate 45-60 mins ahead of departure and it then turns out the incoming aircraft is late by 30-60mins. Anyone can look on an App to see what time a flight is due to arrive. Why don’t they inform passengers before they sit at a gate area with little to do but wait. I know the reason why. They simply do not give a toss about what we, the paying customer wants. No other industry would get away with such dreadful service. They only reason they do get away with it is that they are ALL the same. Hence no alternative. Needs to change. 
 

Back in the 80’s Richard Branson dared to try and shake up the airline business. It nearly cost him dearly had it not been for the arrogance of BA management. It needs another Branson to come along and stir things up. 

[Alavan]

4 hours ago, Eddy said:

Thai Smile is getting worse week after week. Even so Thai Airways Int'nl, ticket prices are getting outrageous and among the highest in the industry, while services getting  down. Unannounced out of the blue, they stopped their non-stop service between Brussels and Bangkok. 30 years I'm flying Thai but this has recently come to and end. I made a booking last night to Bangkok with another South East Asian carrier for nearly half their fare for the same date. Nuff said.

Yes, posted before. Singapore BRUHKT is as cheap a Thai, gives better service and more miles.

 

[JamesR]

14 hours ago, Soidog said:

And there in lies the problem you see @JamesR. Apathy is at the centre of this problem with airlines. I’m not sure which airline you travelled with but 99% punctuality is not the norm. Additionally, 99% is not a figure to be proud of I’m afraid. Even published punctuality figures are misleading as most reports allow them some slack. A flight which arrives at the gate within 15mins of published arrival times is considered on time. Even an hours flight from London to Manchester can be 25% late and still considered on time. I’m sure official airlines figures also exclude a whole host of late flights that either never flew at all (cancelled) or were delayed “for reasons beyond their control”. 
 

The problems extend well beyond late arrivals and in many ways that’s the least of the problems. Punctuality is a difficult issue to resolve as you wouldn’t want to be in a situation where operators take risks or cut corners. The issue is how they handle things when it goes wrong. Most people are in fact reasonable when things go wrong if they are informed and treated respectfully. How many times do we see a problem at an airport and passengers are left stranded for hours. The most common complaint by passengers is “no one is telling us anything”.  The same is true when airlines are departing late or a problem occurs. Passengers often left on the aircraft for hours, too often without food or water. Ryan Air even attempted to charge for use of toilet facilities onboard! 

Im sorry but deflection and “whataboutery”, such as “if you don’t like it use something else” attitude doesn’t improve customer service in any industry. I suspect you have never worked in customer services? 
 

There is a disconnect between the owners/operator of airline companies and the customers they serve. This attitude has been well demonstrated during Covid and the appalling refund policy of many airlines. It’s a shambolic industry in the area of customer service and governments and regulators around the world need to apply more pressure to sort it out. 

I can only comment on my experience of the around 1000 flights I have taken over the years, I am not in the habit of moaning and winging just for the sake of it.

I am surprised they do so well taking into account the complexity of the integrated systems of commercial flying.

Most of the time my flights were ''bus-flights'', London-Stuttgart/Frankfurt/Amsterdam/Berlin/Copenhagen/...etc and so most of the passengers on the early Monday morning flight, late Friday night were commuters like me.

We were happy to be able to hop over to mainland Europe in  one and a half hours or so, I did have to drive at the start and the end of a contract in order to have a car with me during the contract, that took around twelve hours so hopping on a plane twice a week and getting to/from work in a short time was a breeze. 

I have also been on a few European holiday where some moaning one-week-holiday-Minny would expect five star treatment for the price of a bus ticket but they are easily ignored as part of the flying experience.

The aim in life is not to seek out the petty things to moan about just for the sake of it, life is too short for that. 

 

[Soidog]

13 minutes ago, JamesR said:

The aim in life is not to seek out the petty things to moan about just for the sake of it, life is too short for that. 

Agreed. But being left on a plane for 2 hours waiting is not petty. Neither is an hours delay on a flight of one hour. Neither is having to arrive at the airport two hours before your flight etc etc. All airlines are poor when it comes to customer service. I’m not talking about the technology that flies you at 500-700mph. That’s not the airlines who can take that credit, it’s the aircraft manufacturers. I’m talking about the airlines and airline operators along with airport operations.
 

Customer service is way way down the list of priorities. For example, why when I board a long haul flight at midday after being given a meal, do I then get plunged in to darkness at 2pm and for the next 8 hours. I’ll tell you why, the aircrew know it keeps people quiet and they have an easier time of it. I don’t want to sleep and be sat in a darkened environment at 2pm. I’m not 5 and need an afternoon nap! Simply no thought for passengers whatsoever. All done for their convenience. 

[JamesR]

2 minutes ago, Soidog said:

Like I say. You have never worked in customer service and clearly have no idea what good customer service looks like. You must be a dream customer. Docile and easily pleased. 

I as one of my businesses owned a Thai restaurant in England for 22 years, I know about customer services even though I did not run the restaurant myself.

I did notice that most customers understand the complexity of running a restaurant and were understanding if they had to wait a while for their freshly cooked meal especially in a very busy 150 seat restaurant. 

There were however the very few who were part of the moaning brigade who though the world owed them special treatment and would moan no matter the situation, they were told not to come back.

I have found on my air travels most staff are polite and attentive, but a natural born moaner will never be happy no matter how helpful the staff are.

I am quite content not to be part of the auto moan brigade who moan just for the sake of it. 

 

[Faraday]

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[Faraday]

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