Planes, Trains and Automobiles; A new Period

A combination of a few things put me out of blogging action for a while:

1. I've gotten lazy.

2. I was catching up on anime I haven't seen. Anime freaks out there should go catch Kanon and Death Note (the anime, not the movie, though I've heard good things about the movie too).

3. I started re-playing this very long-winded turn-based time-consuming ego-feeding empire-building game which took too much time (because I had too much of it currently). It distracted me from one true purpose of having this laptop (which is to blog with)

4. I was on holiday... with my ex... it was really fun hanging out with someone you know well, but you may never know people well enough (I've come to realise that people can change - someone you think you know now won't be the same person you know later). That makes life interesting, but I'm not looking for interesting experiences nowadays. I just want a life. Period. (punctuation notwithstanding)

5. I was suffering from a writer's block of sorts - there were things I wanted to blog about, but I couldn't put them into words.

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There was an idea to talk about one oft-cited topic: Love. Or rather the reasons for love. I think that love is based on a primal urge to procreate, and as human beings, we are driven to find love because we want to have sex and to reproduce (from a biological point of view, of course). It just gets complicated that we develop feelings along the way: stupid things going by names such as jealousy, hatred, ecstasy - you know them well.

But then, I thought about the fact that too many people have expounded on this topic already, and what can I add to the people who actually read my blog? (I think my regular readers have reached a number that I can count with both my hands!).

So I shan't discuss love - I don't have it now, and I certainly am hungry for it, though I'm beginning to think it is a function of a biological urge.

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There is this post that I wanted to do regarding Singapore Airlines though - I even took notes while the incident was playing out. I was flying out of Changi Airport (Singapore) to Bangkok on an SQ flight (my first in years) and a situation occurred which prevented me from boarding the plane for a long while.

It started with me queueing to check in at Terminal 2's Row 7 check in counter. The first irritating thing is that there is actually a very long queue: it was a rope-lashed snake with 4 bends, which meant one having to navigate an airport push trolley onto people's ankles at least 4 times. One snaky queue feeding something like 12 counters (or positions depending on whose choice of words you chose), of which some were available and some were intermittently closed. I soon found out why there were positions that had to be 'intermittently' closed.

There was actually a lady, not in the usual SIA counter staff garb (the one counter staff wear with the distinctive SQ kebaya pattern for a top and a schoolgirl skirt), standing at the head of the queue directing people to the various counters. She looked authoritative, and she even 'selected' people to skip ahead to the front of the queue, depending on how late they are for their flights. There seemed to be a bias - she seems to move Caucasians ahead of the pack more often than not, but I was probably just being too sensitive. Maybe these ang-mohs just have a thing for checking in late.

Anyhow, this was the situation 2 hours prior to my flight. And I finally got to the counter to check in. I presented my passport, the girl tapped away on the keyboard. I was kept there for something like 5 minutes before being told that a situation had arisen where I might not get a seat on the flight.

Time-out... Now, typically, I think the usual SIA customer will be outraged and suitably angry at this point. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CANNOT PUT ME ON THAT FLIGHT?" might be something I have uttered in utter desperation. With my Outraged Customer Hat on, I might have made a scene or a huge fuss out of the fact that I come 2 hours early to find myself not checked onto the flight. Not impossible yah?

But I am not a usual SIA customer: this is my first SIA flight since I was 10. So I put my
Operations Consultant Hat on instead and decided to find out why she said that.

The reason, oddly enough, actually made sense operationally. SIA is an airline that connects people via Changi airport between people flying out of Europe and Australia going to destinations in Asia (and vice versa, though it was the former case for this situation). A flight out of Sydney coming into Singapore was delayed, and a bunch of the passengers on this particular flight missed their connection in Singapore to other destinations in South-East Asia like Bangkok, Manila and Hanoi.

Knowing that these people are going to miss their scheduled connections, the system did the next best thing it could for them: it put them on the next available SQ flight out to these destinations. One of these next best flight happened to be SQ62 to Bangkok: my flight. All this probably happened even before I showed up at the airport. It made sense then and there to secure the next flight out for these folks, but obviously some things have not been well thought through.

For one thing, the flight was already overbooked - this is a typical airline practice: there is some complicated system to actually calculate yield rates and airlines know that they can overbook an aircraft because there will be cancellations. However, I was flying out on a Hari Raya-Deepavali holiday weekend, which probably screw things up a bit because complex booking algorithms can seldom account for irratic holiday weekend travel patterns.

So while pushing delayed passengers on subseqeunt connecting flights made sound business sense, the fact that the flight was OVERBOOKED, and that it was a HOLIDAY WEEKEND meant that there WILL be people actually boarding that flight in Singapore and one cannot discount that they WILL want to get on the flight.

But... Singapore Airlines, well-known for providing the BEST service to customers put their delayed customers on the next flight out nonetheless. So what was the effect of this happening?

You should have seen the scene at Changi Airport Terminal 2 Check in counter Row 7. Customers were told they needed to wait while the front counter staff scramble to get them seats. My bag was checked in: my bag could actually get on the flight while I had to wait for my turn. I sat on the seats next to the check in row, observing other passengers suffering the same fate. Irate ang-mohs are a sight to behold: this lady was frustrated, furious and screaming at one of the supervisors. Quite understandable: this is Singapore Airlines you're talking about, and what level of service is it that you cannot check in someone who's arrived two hours early?

In providing the best possible service for the folks boarding a delayed flight in Sydney, it has made it impossible for the folks boarding a confirmed flight in Singapore. Pretty well thought out for a world class airline, I must say.

Now, let me assume the Front Counter Staff Hat and see the real victim in all of this. I make no bones about the fact that the real victim isn't myself, the customer. The real victim is the Front Counter girl and mine is named Elline (I never found out her last name). It's a good thing I have had an opportunity to work behind a counter myself (A&E, NUH, something from my previous life as an IT consultant) and I understood what she was going through - I think I was the most reasonable customer for her all of that busy morning.

Often, the Front Counter Staff (FCS) have to handle things on two fronts, both of which are beyond her control in the first place. There is the irate customer on the one hand: the FCS has to deal with frustration, irritation and emotions which are generally beyond their level of comprehension. People hate to wait, and having reached the front of a queue, people hate to be told that they have waited for nothing. The FCS needs to be gentle, reassuring and understanding all at a time when they might be screamed at, shouted at and verbally abused. A crying FCS is a typical sight when things in the backroom get out of hand.

And this is where the FCS faces the biggest ordeal: things happen in the backroom which are beyond her control, and which she might have an inkling of an idea about. The FCS is tasked to provide the best possible service and her KPI is measured based on that - customer waiting time, turnaround time, service etc. But her KPI is affected by backroom events such as the one I have mentioned above.

So, the FCS can try to explain the situation to the irate customer, and at best hope that the customer will understand. It is a tough job with a frequently high turnover, but you do develop a thick hide after facing the worst of them. Elline, my SIA FCS of Row 7, was kind enough to explain the situation, checked in my bag, got me to wait patiently while she put up the sign that said 'Position Closed'. She then ran back and forth between some unknown backroom location and the front counter, all in the name of getting me on that flight.

Me? I was thinking a few things while making notes about the ordeal (I was too free, no book to read, no laptop to punch away on). Firstly, I should have just used SIA's Internet Check-in: much easier, no hassle, and my bag can be carried on. Alternatively, I should have gone in as baggage: bags can get on the flight, passengers cannot. It is SIA, I kept repeating to myself, and it has the best service. Yup, to the irate ang mohs it sure does, since their tempers are well on display. I can still picture this supervisor saying "Sorry... sorry" over and over again to customers who complained.

But I guess there are miracles. Half an hour before the plane was to fly, Elline got me onto the flight. But well, it was the last available seat on the plane - all the way at the back, no choice of aisle or window (I got aisle), near the area where the stewardesses prepare the food. I thanked her, asked her for her name - this is so that I can write this post with a name in mind. The FCS are not nameless assistants to your customer experience: they are also human beings.

I ran, boarded and enjoyed the rest of my trip to Bangkok. But I don't think SIA is that good anymore: Does it make sense that providing good service meant bumping up delayed passengers onto a connecting flight, at the expense of kicking off full-paying passengers who are booked on that flight? I'm tempted to assume my CEO of SIA Hat but I think not: its enough that I blogged about it - if they offer me a job, I think I might even try to help think through strategic imperatives to DEAL with it.

They need some serious re-thinking there... Singapore Airlines.