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For months, you’ve been planning your dream trip. Your new bathing suit is ready, you’ve got a pile of books, and the sandy beaches await you. As you complete your packing, you here the dreaded news on the radio- a blizzard is on the way.
Your disappointment is great, and can lead to tension and anger. Here are some quick tips on how to best cope with the situation:
- Don’t Get Angry At The Airline: The airline would like nothing more than to operate flights and get you where you want to be. Unhappy passengers, canceled and delayed flights are in nobody’s interest. Work with airline personnel courteously- they’re human and they’ll be much more likely to help those who are nice to them.
- Be Flexible – You may not want to be rerouted via Cleveland, but that may be the best option. Empower the agent to think of alternate solutions, but be aware that there may be limited options.
- Be Patient – You encourage no one to go out of their way to assist you if you lose your temper. Vowing never to fly the airline again, a common threat to a customer service agent, doesn’t encourage them to help or the airline to want to give you anything they don’t have to.
- Offer Suggestions – Develop some knowledge of where your airline flies, and thus where they might send you. Encourage the agent to think outside the box, but remember there is likely a line of people behind you, or waiting on the phone for help with a similar problem.
We know it’s hard, but it is hard for the airlines to find better solutions. They cannot have extra planes sitting around. A plane is such an expensive commodity and it doesn’t have very much downtime. Squeezing in a few extra flights is possible, but when you cancel hundred or thousands of flights, things will get overloaded quickly.
We’ll have more on this through the season.
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