Brought me to tears at the counter

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Guest's review of Austrian Airlines

“Brought me to tears at the counter”

★☆☆☆☆

written by on 08/04/2013

Terrible experience!!! I was not allowed to take my flight on 20.012013 from Sofia, Bulgaria to Stockholm, Sweden. As a reason I was given the fact that I did not take the inbound flight on 13.12.2012. If the following sentence in faint small print on the bottom of the webpage means that I am OBLIGED to be on the plane the first time, so that I do not lose all the other flights that I’ve booked, then there are serious discrepancies and lack of clarity on their website which result in the customer being mislead: „This fare is only valid if the flights are taken in the booked sequence. Otherwise the fare will be recalculated based on the actual flight routing.”

What was even worse and I will never forget, was the attitude of the airport staff. They were all wearing Lufthansa uniforms, so I guess they work together. The clerk at the check-in counter said that I cannot just make up my mind that I am going to fly with a different company on a different day and then expect that I will return with you. Let alone the fact that he had no idea about the reason behind my fail to catch the first flight, obviously I didn’t just “make up my mind” to spend another 300 euro for alternative transportation around Christmas (because I know that my ticket is non-changeable or refundable). The attitude of the staff was downright rude. He sent me to the lady at the reservation desk, who told me that the only way I can get back to Sweden is if I pay another 530 euro (!!!) so I can fly on the following day. When I told her that I am a student in a foreign country who is not working and that I don’t have 500 euro in my pocket, especially when I’ve already paid around 600 euro for flights so far, all she said was: “Yes, we have more than enough seats available on the plane, but YOU are not going to fly tonight. Call Boyko Borisov if you wish (the prime minister-b.a.), nobody can help you. You are more than welcome to buy another ticket for tomorrow – 530 euro”. I was denied boarding despite the fact that I offered to pay whatever difference in rates there might be because I MUST get back to Stockholm that night due to the fact that I had an exam. In a very demonstrative manner she picked up the phone and told the guy at the check in to close the flight. She also added that I should have done my reservation through their(not too cheap) call center.

I used to think that these people are there to calm down the customer if they cannot do anything else, not to bring him to a breakdown – I was literally standing there crying out of helplessness and humiliation. Also, I chose to travel with a “normal” airline, which I thought Austrian Airlines was, not because I have money to burn, but because I thought I would avoid the pathetic attempts of the low-cost airlines to wring the last dollar out of the customer. Alas... So far I had spent just under 1000 euro for that roundtrip. I have flown A LOT and over the whole world and I had never encountered a problem like that before, and especially accompanied by such terrible customer service, which I would not expect even from the Bulgarian public administration nowadays, let alone from a huge private company like Austrian Airlines/Lufthansa.

Of course, I contacted the customer service department, who just refered me to the Terms and Conditions on their website and didn't even bother to answer to my second email.

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