Customer service is dead

[Neville Chamberlain]

For me, customer service died in September 2013 when I moved to Berlin. Now it's either native Berliners who make it a point of pride to be as miserable, condescending and unhelpful as possible, or colourful gaggles of over-enthusiastic but utterly incompetent international hipsters who've somehow managed to find themselves in customer-facing positions.

[Danger Man]

Luton Airport is terrible.

Try East Midlands Airport. It feels like the place every 1970's sitcom doing a 'Holiday' movie must have flown from.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I remember Reykjavik Airport being so pleasant that I didn't actually mind spending time in it. Which is as good as an airport can get. Not exactly in the UK, though.

I vaguely remember it having a massive walkway. But I don't think I was in it long enough to appreciate it.

Birmingham airport isn't too bad once you get inside, or at least the domestic terminal isn't but their duty free section that you have to go through is a fucking labyrinth with no obvious exit. Airports that are basically more expensive shopping malls can fuck right off. A coffee stall and a pub are all you need.

[Danger Man]

Favourite airports?

Heathrow terminal 5 and Frankfurt.

[Steven]

Heathrow terminal 5 and Frähnkfoort.

[BlodwynPig]

Kuala Lumpur has a mini jungle inside and pussycat dolls were playing an hour after I departed sadly

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

East Midlands Airport is fairly small and simple. The upholstery is pretty worn as are some of the fixtures but it's spacious enough, customs is fairly painless and most of the aspects you want an airport for it does in an unfussy way. Smaller airports just are inherently better, unless customer demand has outgrown it (Luton, Split being good examples).

The worst thing to say for it is a lot of flights get into East Midlands so late it's often impossible to get the public bus to Derby for an onward train, while it's so far away from anywhere a taxi ride is expensive too. I almost wonder whether this is deliberate so people give up and check into the adjacent hotels (I have had to do so once myself).

There aren't great airports as that would involve them having to entirely change how air travel worked but the standouts I've been to are:

Lublin (tiny and new)
Poznan (tiny and new)
Doncaster Sheffield (small and relatively new)
Pisa (like a tasteful 70s shopping precinct where planes also land)
Vilnius (I don't remember anything at all about it which is usually a good sign)
Zadar (tiny and painless)
Lisbon (turned up about 15 minutes before the gate closed and yet customs was so quick the whole airport experience from arriving at departures to boarding the plan happened in that space of time - about as good as you can get)

While the shittest ones were:

Heathrow (windowless dawn of the dead shopping mall hellhole)
JFK (Refugee Simulator upon arrival, 2.5hr queue, no water or toilet facilities after an already exhausting flight)
Schiphol (20 minutes walk to gate.......15 minutes walk to gate.......10 minutes... hideous. What's the point of a train that takes you from Rotterdam to Amsterdam in 20 minutes when it takes longer to walk across from Departures to the gate)
Palma (overly large with completely dumb layout)
Split (far too small they are replacing it though)
Barcelona (BCN) (poorly designed and not as well integrated as it could be)

Things I most look out for:
1. Speed through customs
2. Space and fresh air/regulated temperature
3. Gate systems that don't involve being cajoled into mezzanine areas for half an hour completely pointlessly
4. Integrated into the urban transport system, eg. underground, train stations, tram, simple bus etc
5. Plug sockets. Please just provide plug sockets you wankers.

[BlodwynPig]

I remember Ljubljana airport being like a charity shop resplendent with dark corners and tressle tables with jumpers on them. Skopje meanwhile was spacious, minimal and 90s futurist desolate

[canadagoose]

Reykjavik is fine, but there's not much open in the airport if you're there on a Sunday evening. There's a bar there that sells some nice (but very strong) beers, which is worth a look, especially considering the beers are a lot cheaper than they are in the rest of Iceland.

Edinburgh Airport is OK, if not a bit busy. Apparently they're expanding it a bit so there are more shops and things. It's got two Spoons in it, if that's your sort of thing. Top tip: Their cooked breakfasts have nice sausages in them.

[BlodwynPig]

Corker of a day. Rick Stein, Old Fasioneds and Hubert the rock star Svengali artist from Austria

Tales to be told another time

[Norton Canes]

I've had not one but two great bits of customer service lately.

1. Dropped and broke the clay lid of our ALDI chimenea. Contacted ALDI customer service. Two days later, new (and free) chimenea lid arrives in the post. 

Thanks, ALDI!

2. Forgot to pick up my copy of The i last week when I'd been sitting outside doing the crossword. Went back later but it had been cleared away. Contacted The i customer service. Two hours later, PDF of the same crossword arrived in my inbox.

Thanks, The i!

[im barry bethel]

I've never been to Southend Airport because I don't want to have to get to fucking Southend, so it might actually be alright.

In a money saving brainwave the bethel tribe are flying from London Southend this summer, originally booked on Flybe, then informed it will be on a Stobart Air plane, now to be operated by Jota Air. We're basically slipping down the ladder of air worthyness and likeyhood of the plane being held together with sticky tape and zip ties

[Cuellar]

Use an inter-bank-rate startup debit card like a human, for fuck's sake.

...what is one of those.

[BlodwynPig]

Mafia boss shot dead on white bicycle today in Palermo. But I had a truly excellent pizza and cannoli - service with a smile

[Twit 2]

East Midlands Airport is fairly small and simple. The upholstery is pretty worn as are some of the fixtures but it's spacious enough, customs is fairly painless and most of the aspects you want an airport for it does in an unfussy way. Smaller airports just are inherently better, unless customer demand has outgrown it (Luton, Split being good examples).

The worst thing to say for it is a lot of flights get into East Midlands so late it's often impossible to get the public bus to Derby for an onward train, while it's so far away from anywhere a taxi ride is expensive too. I almost wonder whether this is deliberate so people give up and check into the adjacent hotels (I have had to do so once myself).

There aren't great airports as that would involve them having to entirely change how air travel worked but the standouts I've been to are:

Lublin (tiny and new)
Poznan (tiny and new)
Doncaster Sheffield (small and relatively new)
Pisa (like a tasteful 70s shopping precinct where planes also land)
Vilnius (I don't remember anything at all about it which is usually a good sign)
Zadar (tiny and painless)
Lisbon (turned up about 15 minutes before the gate closed and yet customs was so quick the whole airport experience from arriving at departures to boarding the plan happened in that space of time - about as good as you can get)

While the shittest ones were:

Heathrow (windowless dawn of the dead shopping mall hellhole)
JFK (Refugee Simulator upon arrival, 2.5hr queue, no water or toilet facilities after an already exhausting flight)
Schiphol (20 minutes walk to gate.......15 minutes walk to gate.......10 minutes... hideous. What's the point of a train that takes you from Rotterdam to Amsterdam in 20 minutes when it takes longer to walk across from Departures to the gate)
Palma (overly large with completely dumb layout)
Split (far too small they are replacing it though)
Barcelona (BCN) (poorly designed and not as well integrated as it could be)

Things I most look out for:
1. Speed through customs
2. Space and fresh air/regulated temperature
3. Gate systems that don't involve being cajoled into mezzanine areas for half an hour completely pointlessly
4. Integrated into the urban transport system, eg. underground, train stations, tram, simple bus etc
5. Plug sockets. Please just provide plug sockets you wankers.

Accidental Partridge much

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Spend hours at airports at a time 20 times a year and see what becomes of you.

[im barry bethel]

Spend hours at airports at a time 20 times a year and see what becomes of you.

Any luck growing that 'tache yet?

[Zetetic]

...what is one of those.

https://revolut.com/
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/prepaid-travel-cards

[Cuellar]

https://revolut.com/
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/credit-cards/prepaid-travel-cards

Thanks!

[selsdon man]

The latest thing at airports seems to be to not tell you the gate number until about 10 minutes before it closes, give you loads of warnings saying "If you're not at the gate in time you're not getting on", and then put up a big sign with lots of different arrows saying "20 minutes walk to gates 1-199". Then you saunter to the gate and find they haven't even started boarding. And obviously it wouldn't take 20 minutes if they didn't make you run through a maze of shitty shops all selling exactly the same thing. It's the new trend of how to give terrible customer service without ever speaking to a human being face to face (see also: the EasyJet app which I apparently have to re-install every time I get to an airport).

[Sebastian Cobb]

The latest thing at airports seems to be to not tell you the gate number until about 10 minutes before it closes, give you loads of warnings saying "If you're not at the gate in time you're not getting on", and then put up a big sign with lots of different arrows saying "20 minutes walk to gates 1-199". Then you saunter to the gate and find they haven't even started boarding. And obviously it wouldn't take 20 minutes if they didn't make you run through a maze of shitty shops all selling exactly the same thing. It's the new trend of how to give terrible customer service without ever speaking to a human being face to face (see also: the EasyJet app which I apparently have to re-install every time I get to an airport).

The one that really does my head in is when they keep perpetually delaying boarding by 5 to 10 minutes at a time. I've usually nursed a drink and am ready to go then they fuck about with that, if it said 15+ minutes then I could  have another and not be sat wound up. I suppose it's to stop people sauntering off.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

The one that really does my head in is when they keep perpetually delaying boarding by 5 to 10 minutes at a time. I've usually nursed a drink and am ready to go then they fuck about with that, if it said 15+ minutes then I could  have another and not be sat wound up. I suppose it's to stop people sauntering off.

That is often the result of the airport delaying provision of disabled lifts/refuelling. Often not the airport's fault if there are limited facilities all in use. Just like trains if there's​ a late arrival that tends to throw things out of whack and affect everyone, and similarly the airline may not know how easy it will be for a disabled passenger to disembark making boarding times educated (or otherwise) guesswork. Nevertheless, communication remains appalling, they seem to purposefully tell you nothing, which hardly helps when everyone is stood there wondering what the fuck is going on.

[moondogs]

If you're relying on Travelex for your currency exchange you've mugged yourself off, I'm afraid.

[Paul Calf]

I don't know how. Incredibly big and badly organised. Doncaster Airport is better than Schiphol.

If you could only fly to Hilversum or Hoek from Schiphol, I'm sure it'd be smaller. Schiphol has decent food options, a brilliant, cheap, fast train service to the rest of the country, flights to anywhere in the world and reclining seats in Departures.

and these: https://worksthatwork.com/1/urinal-fly

You could pretty much live there.

[yesitsme]

Not in all places it hasn't....

Hi

I would just like to send an email to say I have been dealing with a guy called Yesitsme whilst booking my far east trip.

He has been absolutely brilliant! Really great customer service. He went over and above his job and really helped me out and made me feel relaxed with my bookings. I also really appreciated his patience and kindness.

I just wanted to pass the message on as its not often you get someone so helpful and happy!