Business Traveller (Asia-Pacific)
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Every year, my wife and I travel on a first class round-theworld ticket. Usually we fly with Singapore Airlines (SIA) from San Francisco to Hong Kong. On October 12, having flown with United from Orlando, we had a three-hour layover at San Francisco. We visited the not-so-first-class SIA lounge, which was noisy, small and uncomfortable. I asked a staff member if she could make sure our three bags had been allocated space on the plane, which she confirmed.
We had a smooth flight and arrived in Hong Kong on time. At the gate, we were met by an SIA staff member who said that our luggage had been left behind in San Francisco, without any further explanation.
We received a small amount of cash compensation and were told the luggage would arrive 24 hours later. However, we had samples and work papers in our checked baggage and an important business dinner to attend, which we did not have the correct attire for.
I called SIA the following morning, wanting to know why three pieces of first class luggage had been left behind, but it could not say. I have emailed the airline twice but evidently it does not care about its first class passengers enough to explain the reason behind its lack of attention. For us, this caused considerable problems as all our meetings were cancelled and/ or rescheduled.
SINGAPORE AIRLINES REPLIES:
Singapore Airlines would like to apologise for the experience of Mr Fjellberg during his recent trip with us, and is grateful for his feedback.
Our records show that, unfortunately, Mr Fjellberg’s luggage did not reach us in time following his earlier connecting flight with another carrier, and this was the reason for it not being successfully uplifted on his flight. We apologise for the inconvenience this caused and will follow up with our airline partners and staff as part of improving our operations in future.
On learning that the bags had not travelled on the same flight, our teams in Hong Kong immediately sought to provide compensation at an increased level in recognition of the situation. At the same time, delivery of the luggage was given top priority so that it was promptly returned the following day.
Customer satisfaction is very important to us and we apologise that we did not receive the customer’s earlier emails in order to be able to reply. We are very happy to discuss the matter further with Mr Fjellberg and look forward to hearing from him in due course.