Tigerair lets down disabled
A BUSINESS is only as good as its front office and how staff enact company policy.
Wheelchair-bound Anna Adele’s complaint about how she was treated by an airline at Gold Coast Airport points to problems.
Tigerair this week unveiled new uniforms, a new booking and check-in system, a new “customer friendly’’ website and a new and improved call centre.
Maybe its management should be thinking today about new policies, new training and new options for flight and ground crew.
The attempt to overcome a perception of being an unreliable, last-choice option for travellers by launching a new-look corporate image with a marketing campaign to convince passengers “a tiger can change its stripes’’ has already flown into a storm.
Ms Adele says when she flew with Tigerair from Melbourne to the Gold Coast on October 16 she encountered attitudes and obstacles that left her in tears, humiliated and in pain.
Tigerair did the right thing in having an aircraft lift there to help her exit the plane, but she says there was a refusal to co-operate when it came to retrieving her specially designed wheelchair to get her out and cross the tarmac.
She says she was told to use a generic chair instead, but this was unsuitable for her spinal condition.
She says she was also told the airline did not cater for people like her and she should use Virgin or Jetstar.
Back in 2009, Australian Paralympian Kurt Fearnley encountered similar attitudes from another airline at Brisbane Airport when he returned to Australia after crawling the Kokoda Track.
Before boarding a Brisbane-Newcastle flight, Jetstar staff made him check in his own wheelchair at the check-in desk instead of the boarding gate, and insisted he use one of the airline’s chairs that he described as “trolleys’’ and refused to use, saying they had to be pushed and steered by someone else.
He made his own way to the plane, partly by crawling and partly on his brother’s back. The resulting publicity forced an apology from Jetstar.
Incredibly, six years later there are still problems with staff and policies dealing with the disabled, this time at Tigerair.
Staff might feel pressured and try to stick to policies determined in line with Tigerair’s “low cost model’’ and resulting limitations, but in the Adele case the result has been a very unhappy passenger who has gone to the media at a critical time.
Tigerair can salvage this situation with a quick apology and a hard look at that policy and practices.
With the Commonwealth Games looming in this tourism city, all airlines and tourism businesses should be ensuring staff and/or contractors do everything to assist.