Scoot troubles

[young]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...249075/1/.html

A Scoot spokesperson said the issue arose when due to technical reasons, the airline was not able to accommodate 23 people booked on the Bangkok bound flight.

A large group of their friends who were already in the boarding area then became disruptive and would not let the flight board.

What kind of technical reasons would cause them to offload 23 pax?

[boing]

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...249075/1/.html

A Scoot spokesperson said the issue arose when due to technical reasons, the airline was not able to accommodate 23 people booked on the Bangkok bound flight.

A large group of their friends who were already in the boarding area then became disruptive and would not let the flight board.

What kind of technical reasons would cause them to offload 23 pax?

Slide raft inop.

[kal]

No reason I suppose, scoot using only one type of aircraft B772. it's obvious overbooked ?

[cscs1956]

Actually is quite suprised that they rather compensate and want to put these 23 people to flight on next day vs putting them on another airline. In the end, flight to another destination also delayed by 12 hours.

I think the staff handle the case poorly.

[fone]

Since when does a budget airline put you on another airline? (and probably pay much more than the fare the passenger paid).

[MAN Flyer]

Since when does a budget airline put you on another airline?

When you come from a parallel universe with no conecpt of reality, or a bizarre agenda against certain countries/airlines/companies.

Fun to watch though.

[boing]

No reason I suppose, scoot using only one type of aircraft B772. it's obvious overbooked ?

The passenger capacity of an aircraft is affected when a passenger door is unable to open or if its slide raft is inop. A certain portion of seats forward and aft of the affected door must be blocked as part of the MEL requirements.

From what I understand, one of the doors on that flight was U/S.

[MLflyer]

Since when does a budget airline put you on another airline? (and probably pay much more than the fare the passenger paid).

JQ does this a lot surprisingly. Most of the time if both QF & JQ fly the same route like MEL-SIN, affected passengers would be placed on QF flights. Just recently a JQ HNL-MEL flight went tech and QF had to fly one of their own to pick up the passengers. Well this is a parent - subsidiary arrangement, however this is the same relationship SQ has with TZ.

[Desert Traveller]

JQ does this a lot surprisingly. Most of the time if both QF & JQ fly the same route like MEL-SIN, affected passengers would be placed on QF flights. Just recently a JQ HNL-MEL flight went tech and QF had to fly one of their own to pick up the passengers. Well this is a parent - subsidiary arrangement, however this is the same relationship SQ has with TZ.

SQ might be the owner TZ, but I doubt it will ever have close links with TZ. The QF/JQ relationship is more like the relationship between SQ and MI.

[flying.monkeyz]

Hello Scoot Community,

As many of you would have known by now, one of our flights was disrupted over the weekend which caused consequential delays to a number of others. We appreciate all that has been shared and discussed on our Facebook pages over the past few days, and know that many of you were anxious and frustrated. I’ve been reviewing your comments and I thought that, in addition to extending my own apology, it might be useful to share a little more information about how we’ll improve communication, the compensation for delays and what actually transpired over the weekend. It’s a long post, but bear with me.

We realized that one of the main causes of frustration was the timeliness and frequency of information. We have been, in fact, working for a few months on an SMS alert system designed specifically to provide timely information when flights are disrupted due to weather conditions or other events. This system is due for implementation in just a few weeks….or, as Murphy’s Law would describe it, just a few weeks too late. Too late is, of course, too late, and we’re sorry.

We’re also aware that many of you have questions regarding compensation. In keeping with our Guest Promise, we’ll be issuing a SGD50 voucher to every passenger on the flights which were delayed beyond 4 hours. All passengers who were denied boarding were given tickets on the next available Scoot flight and offered a SGD200 Scoot travel voucher each, and those who chose to buy a new ticket on another airline can obtain a refund from us on the sector that was not flown, and claim against their travel insurance for the new ticket.

We'd also like to be transparent about the issues lead to the delays, lest it clarifies your queries. The whole saga arose just before our Singapore-Bangkok flight on Saturday (19 January), when engineers discovered a technical fault with one of the doors at the back of the aircraft during the pre-flight check. Whilst the aircraft was completely safe to operate, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore rules required the seats in rows 57 – 65 to be empty.

As the flight was fully booked, emptying these seats necessitated the unfortunate step of seeking volunteers to take a later flight, in return for compensation. The need to ask passengers to travel on a later flight was entirely due to the need to vacate rows 57-65 for safety reasons, and was not due to overbooking of the flight.

Regrettably, we were unable to find the necessary number of volunteers, so advised the last 23 passengers that they would be transferred to the next flight and be compensated. Despite the terms of carriage requiring guests to comply with safety related requests such as this, these guests refused to comply and, with some other companions, physically blocked the boarding gate so the flight could not board. Various efforts of Scoot representatives and the Airport Police failed to resolve the standoff. Eventually, after a six hour delay, 23 other passengers agreed to travel at a later date and the aircraft departed for Bangkok.

Upon the aircraft’s return to Singapore the door fault was fixed within a few hours, but by then every flight to be operated by that aircraft was behind schedule - including the flight to Tianjin on Sunday (20 January), and, due to passengers connecting from Tainjin to the Gold Coast later that day. After much effort, the schedule was restored on Monday evening, though some guests whose connections had been broken remained enroute home.

To cut a long story short, a small technical glitch and the actions of a small number of people had substantial consequences on the travel of many others. The irony is that we had proactively delayed the Bangkok flight by a few hours to fix the fault – guaranteeing disruption to nearly 800 people’s plans - rather than seeking just 23 people to travel on a later flight with compensation, the rest of our schedule would have been virtually unaffected. And, even with the path we chose, had the 23 complied with the safety instruction to travel on a later flight with compensation, there would have been no schedule disruption at all.

I'd still like to remind, however, that we are a no-frills airline. We believe that most of you understand this travel model enough to know that the only way we can offer fares as low as we do is, in part, by not keeping the same large teams of airport or customer support staff as our much more expensive full-service brethren, and that some degree of self-reliance is a quid-pro-quo for a cheap, safe ticket. We have always tried to be as clear as possible in our terms and conditions of carriage, which must be acknowledged as read and accepted before a ticket can be issued, that we do not provide meals, drinks or accommodation in the event of disruption, and repeatedly state that travel insurance is highly recommended.

Snow, fog, typhoons or the occasional technical glitch are just some of the issues that are a fact of life for any regular traveler, and although less than 1% of our flights have been affected by more than 15 minutes due to engineering reasons since our launch, unforeseen events do occur. We at Scoot are travelers too, and trust us, we dislike disruptions as much as you do. But they sometimes happen, and pretending that they don’t, or thinking that despite every statement to the contrary we were just joking in our recommendation to take travel insurance, won’t prevent them from happening.

We absolutely understand your frustration – we, too are not especially happy with the 23 folk who refused our, and the Airport Police’s instruction – but what’s done is done. There are things that we can and will learn from this, and I assure you that we will. But, more than anything, we will continue to focus on providing great value, safe and – as best we possibly can – fun and reliable travel. Thanks for taking time to read this and, whether you’ve commented for or against us, thank you for your passion.

Campbell Wilson
Chief Executive Officer
Scoot

What do you think of Campbell's response?

[CarbonMan]

Excellent! He didn't white-wash anything. He stated the facts as it happened. He reminded people of what a budget airline is and what it means to the pax. And lastly he offered some remedies.

I would love to see a video of the 23 blocking the boarding gate for 6 hours. Security should've stepped in.

[SINFJ]

Excellent! He didn't white-wash anything. He stated the facts as it happened. He reminded people of what a budget airline is and what it means to the pax. And lastly he offered some remedies.

I would love to see a video of the 23 blocking the boarding gate for 6 hours. Security should've stepped in.

Unfortunately, the human nature is such that when hell happens. everything else is thrown to the wind. The most ugly sides of even the most beautiful will surface.

[Kyo]

Good job on the CEO taking it on the chin. It's when a CEO publicly gives answers in tricky situations such as these that they earn my respect. And then they have to act on them.

One doesn't need to look far at a certain airline's website to learn a fine example of a CEO demonstrating how to 'siam' (Hokkien for avoid responsibility)... a problem that they acknowledged since 14 July 2011.

[flyguy]

well things happened and even if not for weather related delays,Scoot does seems to have minir tech issues which have delayed its flights a few times - even its inaugural flight was delayed by a couple of hours. In this particular case, apparently no one from the senior management came forward to handle the situation as some passengers have complained about and there's possibly some commuincations issues in the explaining of the situation and compensation terms.
However it does looks odd somewhat as Wilson stated when the plane returned from Bangkok it only took few hours to fix the rear door. But duringthe delay at Changi and the resultant confrontation by the chinese passengers, if Scoot would havethe engineers fix the door at the same time, then all this would not have happened although only the flight be delayed.

[SINFJ]

Good job on the CEO taking it on the chin. It's when a CEO publicly gives answers in tricky situations such as these that they earn my respect. And then they have to act on them.

One doesn't need to look far at a certain airline's website to learn a fine example of a CEO demonstrating how to 'siam' (Hokkien for avoid responsibility)... a problem that they acknowledged since 14 July 2011.

Well, there has to be a ROI to be reached on the dollars and man hours spent on the website. Then they can justify for a new one