China Airlines and Yvonne Song

China Airlines being a Taiwanese aircraft carrier has once again proven its
insufficiency when it comes to passenger service. Having received a strong
complaint letter from a Malaysian citizen residing in the Northern Malaysian city
of Penang as well as some other write-ins from people who had been
passengers of China Airlines recently, we can assume that ground services of
China Airlines are anything from just doing their job, but far from good,
satisfactory or friendly. It had come to our knowledge that a Malaysian lady tried
to check in at Los Angeles International Airport. She was guided to the check-in-
counter of a certain Ms. Yvonne Song being a member of the LAX ground staff
of China Airlines. Being extremely stern and unfriendly towards this female
passenger, she asked her several times to re-pack her baggage due to apparent
overweight. Then her husband faced difficulty to check in and not being
allowed to fly into Malaysia, as he - being a non-Malaysian citizen- had no
outbound flite ticket, out of Malaysia. Only after having signed a document
releasing liability of possible consequential ticketing costs of China Airlines was
this honest gentleman allowed to check in at LAX.
This not being enough, having boarded the aircraft, they found the seats of
China Airlines way too tight for unpainful sitting and traveling, and we are
talking about a 15 hour flight from Los Angeles to Taipei, Taiwan, plus another 4
hours of onward flight time from Taipei to Penang, Malaysia.
Being truly an awakening experience for not only a single passenger, one can
surely downgrade the
“passenger-service-friendliness” even further.
Ms. Yvonne Song of the China Airlines ground services of LAX was certainly
aware of how un-accomodating she acted towards their very own clients.
In a close comparison with other Asian Airliners, China Airlines could be rated
lower than Thai Airways, Eva Air, Cathay Pacific Airways or even Malaysia
Airlines. Singapore Airlines Service-friendliness is still SUPERB and can not be
met by any other airline company worldwide.
Ms. Song should surely think about the long-term-effects of only a one-time-twist
in service & accomodation. The word-of-mouth is still a powerful marketing
instrument, and be it not solely for money and budget savings, many more
passengers would avoid China Airlines Flying services for good.
Maybe it is about time that all airlines have a deeper look into Singapore
Airline’s close-to-perfect-onboard service mentality, and try to improve their
respective stewardship training campuses.
So, think again before you fly with an airline which doesn’t keep to its good
global reputation.

RJK

Dr. Roger Joe Knightley - Freelance Journalist - February 2009 - Page 1