Air Berlin Review

Overall Rating

Few. Possibly simply the fact that we got to fly at all.

AB Customer Service is, without exaggeration, the worst I have ever experienced (Valencia [Manises] airport). All round absolute lack of interest in or respect for customer welfare, and no refreshments offered during the extreme wait (10 hours from original due departure time).

On 7th July 2008 my partner and I were due to catch the 12:25 flight from Valencia to Palma de Mallorca via Air Berlin. We were through to the departure lounge by 11.30am and waited patiently for our flight. 12.25 came and went without news other than the 'delayed' message on the TV screens, and nobody, including my partner and me, was quite sure whether to leave the departure lounge or wait for news as there were very few airport staff present to ask for information. Eventually, at 13.30 approximately, two Air Berlin representatives turned up in the departure lounge - bearing in mind that we'd been waiting for an hour since departure time already -, to inform us that our flight was in fact cancelled due to a technical failure in Palma. The screen had not changed to 'cancelled'; the flight had simply disappeared from the screen around ten minutes prior to their appearance, echoed shortly afterwards by the Tannoy. They informed us that the next available flight would be at 18:00, though they couldn't guarantee how many of us would be able to board that flight. They requested that we remained in the departure area and would return within half an hour with more news. So, dutifully, we waited for an hour longer ... only for nobody to appear. By this point, incensed, a group of us approached one of the few airport staff in the area to enquire about the situation and also our bags, which had been checked in for the 12:25 flight but about which we had received no news and didn't know if they had been returned or held. The staff member instructed us to pick them up from one of the carousels to where they would have been returned on cancellation, and to ask AB for more information at the customer service desk upstairs. Lo and behold, our baggage had been dumped on a carousel, though none of this information was offered to us by Air Berlin despite requesting us to wait for the representatives' return. By this time furious with the lack of interest in either ourselves or our possessions (would it have been so difficult to let us know where our baggage was?) we went up to the Air Berlin desk where a huge crowd of angry customers had gathered. You may ask why we didn't leave the departure lounge earlier: without any information for an hour after the due departure time but the 'delayed' message, we thought it better to remain where we were in case the plane arrived and we could begin boarding, rather than dashing off elsewhere and potentially missing the plane. Plus, the AB reps asked us to meet them there, an appointment which they didn't see fit to honour, 1.5 hours after departure time ... In the desk queue, we waited for just over 3 hours - yes, 3 - for our turn at the desk, while the rep who had promised her return hours before strutted back and forth between check-in and the desk. On actively approaching her I was rudely told 'not now' and, ready to blow, I pointed out to her that I had been at the airport for nearly 8 hours already with little information and that, while the technicality couldn't be the fault of the staff, I was not prepared to put up with such appalling customer service. She responded that she was not responsible for the situation and subsequently blanked me. Other companies' flights were either booked up or too expensive for us on such short notice and so we had no choice but to wait; I might also point out that at no point prior to this did they offer us refreshments or apologies of any kind, despite the ridiculously long wait for a *55* minute flight! On finally reaching the desk, the rep was considerably more helpful, sympathetic and humane than her colleague, and arranged to put us on the 21:00 flight. Guess what I'm going to say next...

Yes, the 21:00 flight came and went, with no update from Air Berlin, only our trusty screen which showed 'delayed' for half an hour before changing to Tenerife, meaning that we had to track our flight down to another gate, leaving most of the people completely confused, tired, and angry once more (the Tannoy announced this change of time and gate about 15 minutes later). Finally, at 22:10, we boarded our 55 minute flight, just under 10 hours after original departure time and just under 12 after our arrival at the airport, sustained only by the food and drink we had purchased ourselves during the entire time.

Though any reasonable individual can appreciate that technical faults are not the responsibility of the customer service staff, customer service certainly is, and I have never been treated so abominably by anyone as I have by Air Berlin, and, in particular, one of the employees who basically, could not have cared less about my welfare. I am sure that certain offices of Air Berlin are more efficient than this, but after the complete lack of respect or care of this godawful experience, but I will never be the one to find out.