By Bizna Brand Analyst
This past weekend, I went to Malindi with some friends and we chose to travel with Fly540. This turned out to be a not-so-brilliant move. The flight to Malindi wasn’t so bad. The return flight was what pissed most of us off. There turned out to be a massive delay that caused a wide variety of inconveniences and made us all wish we had chosen a different carrier.
Before writing this article, I checked Fly540.com and this is what is written under the ‘cancellation and delays’ section.
“We do our best to keep our flights on time, but sometimes we experience delays for reasons that are beyond our control. If we have to change the timing of a departure due to maintenance issues, we will endeavor to contact you as soon as possible to give warning. Please ensure you give us accurate contact details when making your booking. Unplanned delays are unfortunate, but we will still do our best to keep you informed and get services back up and running as soon as possible.”
A couple of lies are plastered all over this bit of information. Our flight was supposed to depart from Malindi at 11:50 am. At least that’s what we were told when booking. When we arrived at the airport, we were told the flight would depart at 12:20 instead. No explanation was given. That was just what was going to happen, whether we liked it or not. Were we contacted earlier about this development as is indicated on the website? Hell no.
So we just sat down and waited. AFter all, It was only going to be a thirty-minute delay after all right? Wrong. 12:20 came and there was nothing. Then it was 12:30 and passengers started getting concerned. We kept asking a Fly540 attendant what was wrong and all she could say was, “You’ll be boarding in a few minutes.” Did she have a time frame? Hell no. All she could promise was a few minutes.
The phrase ‘a few minutes’ is relative. To some, a few minutes is 2 minutes and to some it’s 40 minutes. Again, had anyone at Fly540 done their best to keep us informed as it’s written in their website? Not at all. To them, we wanted to fly so we had to wait. It didn’t matter that our plans were going to be altered. Anyone who didn’t want to wait should go call superman.
Complaining on social media wasn’t going to be effective either. Fly540 has limited presence there. Their Twitter account is mostly useless and devoted to occasional responses. They do direct people issuing complaints and making inquiries, to their website though.
We finally boarded at 1pm. Inside the plane, some Italians were still cursing about the delays like they were some mafia bosses who had just found out they were being tapped by the feds. Everyone was pissed. The pilot and the cabin crew were at least kind enough to convey their apologies.
I found the cabin crew to be very professional and courteous. God bless them. The food and drink service was a bit of a mixed experience.
After a few minutes, we were served biscuits and soda. What are we? Class six children? Biscuits and soda? Most of the white passengers didn’t touch any of that. They just asked for water. I’ve never understood why some airlines try so hard to minimize the budget on food and refreshments. Just serve the passengers something descent. It’s a plane. Not a nursery school.
Flight540 have got it right with their flight and cabin crew but they need to improve on other areas as well. A good plane ride involves more than just moving from Airport A to Airport B safely.
