Westjet losing focus and customers?

[Circa89]

I had a westjet customer service related issue that went from bad to good last week.

Leaving Hamilton at 7:30 at night to return to Calgary after a weekend in Niagara Falls with my 8 year old daughter.
Flight is delayed by 1 hour before boarding.
Flight is further delayed 2 hours while on Tarmac.
Flight is cancelled because the flight crew would work over the allotted amount of hours per day.
No problem.

I am sent to stay in a hotel in Hamilton. Given a voucher for the hotel and 2 taxi vouchers.

The hotel they sent me to was sold out... I phoned westjet to see what to do but there was no one to answer the calls.
I am told by the hotel that another hotel will accept the voucher. This hotel is a dive. I bring my daughter to inspect the room for bed bugs and all looks good so we accept the room.

The hotel will not take the voucher because it is made out to hotel A.

Long story long.... It is now midnight I take the room put it on Visa and get up at 5 to head back to the airport and westjet takes my info and tells me all I have to do is phone in my Visa when I get back to Calgary for a full refund.

After several run arounds and 2 days eventually I am told I have to wait 6-8 weeks to get reimbursed.


I then wrote westjet detailing my long arduous story, of which I have spared many details here.

Good news is Westjet still has it.... They had 3 customer service agents send me emails and 2 call me. I was reimbursed that day ( or given a credit worth twice the room rate). And given 20 percent off my next flight.

Gotta say I was disappointed for sure but eventually they came through in the end.

[Inglewood Jack]

I prefer Air Canada's IFE as well because of the relative movie freshness, but always wondered why the touch screen has the most delayed response in history. an experienced flyer I know asked an employee what the deal was, and why it sometimes crashes and needs to be reboot. supposedly the system runs off a really geriatric computer that processes requests slowly, and craps out if too many people are pushing the buttons at the same time.

I imagine in a closet at the front of every AC aircraft is a beige 486 DX2-50 rocking 4MB of RAM, and every time it crashes the stewardess has to comment out a few lines in the autoexec.bat file to free up some memory.

[Bigtime]

^^^ I believe the AC AVOD system was pretty much a brand new one when they started introducing it in the fleet. One of the big advantages to it was no need for a box under the seats for the system, which on other airlines eats up some leg room. However over the years the system seems to be better than those first couple. I think they probably got a lot of support and perhaps even some compensation from the manufacturer.

[wooohooo]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

I prefer Air Canada's IFE as well because of the relative movie freshness, but always wondered why the touch screen has the most delayed response in history. an experienced flyer I know asked an employee what the deal was, and why it sometimes crashes and needs to be reboot. supposedly the system runs off a really geriatric computer that processes requests slowly, and craps out if too many people are pushing the buttons at the same time.

I imagine in a closet at the front of every AC aircraft is a beige 486 DX2-50 rocking 4MB of RAM, and every time it crashes the stewardess has to comment out a few lines in the autoexec.bat file to free up some memory.

I always found their system very fast and easy to use. I flew Air China this summer... it was absolutely horrible. The touch screen wasn't responsive enough, and the joystick control was a good 3-4 seconds and you can only make the cursor move left to right so if you miss your movie because of the delay, you need to cycle through the whole thing again. Huge PITA. Seriously, Air Can has the best system I've flown on.

[Kipper is King]

I find AC is better internationally than domestically. Snacks before boarding, friendly staff, etc. Anyone else feel the same way?

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Kipper is King

I find AC is better internationally than domestically. Snacks before boarding, friendly staff, etc. Anyone else feel the same way?

Yes.

[Bunk]

Yeah, I'd agree with most that AC's in flight entertainment system is far superior to WJ's live tv. I look forward to seeing which movies there will be to watch - makes the flight go by nice and fast. Hope to see WJ switch to something similar - because besides that problem the airline is quite good.

[MRCboicgy]

Every time I fly WJ, I land on "Mayday". Somehow I think that show should be preempted for something that doesn't involve air disasters. Doesn't bother me, but I'd rather have the other pax staying relaxed and all.

[Tyler]

Westjet is good from Calgary to anywhere on the west coast.

Once you start getting past the 3 hour point, I'd take AC over them any day

[Azure]

AC has a more comfortable ride from Calgary to Winnipeg and vice versa. At least from my experience.

[JD]

I think both our major airlines are good at their bread and butter, ie, AC is really good in the International market and Westjet is better for short 1-2 hour flights. In my experiences, anyway. Once you start flying some of the other airlines out there in the world (especially the US's carriers), you start to realize how good we actually have it here.

[Short Shift]

Originally Posted by JD

I think both our major airlines are good at their bread and butter, ie, AC is really good in the International market and Westjet is better for short 1-2 hour flights. In my experiences, anyway. Once you start flying some of the other airlines out there in the world (especially the US's carriers), you start to realize how good we actually have it here.

I don't remember what kind of jet it was, but my connection from Bangkok to Sydney had ashtrays in the arm rests.
I would take AC or WJ over that deathtrap relic any day.

[Ryan Coke]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

Puhhhlease...your seat assignment gets written into the reservation/aircraft loading database no matter what. Whether its written at the time of purchasing the ticket or when WJ assigns you a seat is irrelevant to the cost of that database entry.

Leveraging basic IT infrastructure that already exists to service the customer is nickel and dimming no matter how you look at it. It costs nothing to let the passenger select the seat.

I don't fundamentally disagree, it's the economics that I think your missing the point. If other airlines start charging extra for desirable seats (exit row) and make a bunch of extra money off it, then we are not able to generate the same revenue they are. So we advertise and say "hey book with us, we don't charge for seat Pre selection", but either people don't care and it makes no difference, or people who want to pay to pre select still book with the competitor, then we are at a disadvantage. We generate less revenue than our competition, which is kind of a fundamental part of running a successful business.

And again, we do allow you to Pre select for no cost when you check in at 24 hours prior. If you dont want to pay for a particular seat, then you don't have to.

And feel free to come visit for cockpit tours before or after your flight. We love to see kids (or a avgeek adults) come for a visit. The only issue is of course sometimes we are tight for time since we have work to do, but never any harm in asking!

[normtwofinger]

^ Good post.

I don't see the problem in charging extra to select your seat prior to 24 hrs. IMO, selecting early is an extended service.

Somewhat related, when Continental was around, they would randomly assign seats. I was traveling with my parents and my wife, and all 4 of us were scattered about the plane. It took a long time to convince the gate agent to at least pair us up. After boarding, multiple families were also scattered. Even some parents had small children sitting by themselves with complete strangers. It actually delayed the flight as the flight crew played the sliding puzzle game trying to reunite the families. I'm so glad that United ditched that awful strategy when they merged.

[TitovFTW]

They respond to ever complaint or beef people make with them on twitter. Very active for whatever that's worth. I was waiting to see an article in the OP or something of substance to make this argument that valid.

[Bigtime]

I'm curious how many people WS employs to run their twitter/facebook operation. As you mentioned Titov, they are very quick to reply to almost any post made to them (positive or negative).

I have notice that the AC twitter account is getting better at responding quickly too.

[Tyler]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I'm curious how many people WS employs to run their twitter/facebook operation. As you mentioned Titov, they are very quick to reply to almost any post made to them (positive or negative).

I have notice that the AC twitter account is getting better at responding quickly too.

I think they employ 2 people full time to do their social media. At least they did when we met with them last time. Great bunch.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

^^^ I believe the AC AVOD system was pretty much a brand new one when they started introducing it in the fleet. One of the big advantages to it was no need for a box under the seats for the system, which on other airlines eats up some leg room. However over the years the system seems to be better than those first couple. I think they probably got a lot of support and perhaps even some compensation from the manufacturer.

My understanding was AC has put the boxes "under" the floor, so they're screwed to the bottom floor/top of the cargo hold. There are definitely some of the earliest 77Ws that have the boxes under the seat. I got one on a flight to China and it was terrible.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by TitovFTW

They respond to ever complaint or beef people make with them on twitter. Very active for whatever that's worth. I was waiting to see an article in the OP or something of substance to make this argument that valid.

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I'm curious how many people WS employs to run their twitter/facebook operation. As you mentioned Titov, they are very quick to reply to almost any post made to them (positive or negative).

I have notice that the AC twitter account is getting better at responding quickly too.

Originally Posted by Tyler

I think they employ 2 people full time to do their social media. At least they did when we met with them last time. Great bunch.

They never responded to me.

My mother booked tickets through AirMiles over the phone. They spelled my mom's name wrong. The confirmation was for two people but only had my dad's name. Mom never thought anything of it until she went to do the web check in and saw her name had a misspelling. After some discussion I convinced her that US customs wouldn't let her in as her passport wouldn't match her ticket.

I called WestJet who said where it was booked through AirMiles only they could change it. That seemed odd but ok.

AirMiles had me on hold for two hours before I got an agent (I'm not joking I have video of the phone's call timer and the hold message after the two hour mark). AirMiles couldn't help me as it was WestJet's system.

I called WestJet back (on my cell I wasn't letting AirMiles go) and the agent got tech support on the line and changed it within 3 minutes.

I Facebooked WestJet with the issue, I recognize the hold on AirMiles is not their fault but they should be aware of how their partner is treating their customers. Secondly, why didn't they solve the problem to start with?

I never got a response. All I was looking for was a "sorry for your experience, we will look into the issue with AirMiles." and an explanation why we weren't helped the first time.

Needless to say, I'm less than impressed. Moreso with AirMiles (I didn't mention the part where he girl stopped short of calling me a liar then dismissed me when I offered to email her proof) but WestJet dropped the ball on the first call and how can they offer their customers a better experience via their partners if they don't listen to partner complaints?

Perhaps my frustration lies with my expectations of what WestJet is known for (customer service above and beyond) and I only got average customer service with no response via Facebook (as I expected).

[JD]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

My understanding was AC has put the boxes "under" the floor, so they're screwed to the bottom floor/top of the cargo hold. There are definitely some of the earliest 77Ws that have the boxes under the seat. I got one on a flight to China and it was terrible.

Lufthansa is horrible for this! I'm short and don't need much leg-room, but those boxes made my Frankfurt-Abu Dhabi flight miserable when I was doing that. Can't imagine what it must be like for normal-sized people.