Kenya Airways – badly let down by terrible service on the ground.
Written: Oct 31 '09 (Updated Nov 21 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Flights weren't too bad, although a camera went missing from the hold luggage.
Cons: Terrible service and delays on the ground.
The Bottom Line: Kenya Airways are far too much like hard work. Look for alternative carriers where you can.
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| cr01's Full Review: Kenya Airways |
Kenya Airways - a few glitches in the air, badly let down by terrible service on the ground.
I won't be the first to observe that the true customer service standard of a company is often only exposed during a complex transaction. My extended experience of Kenya Airways found them sadly lacking. Although our actual flight experience was reasonable (apart from the theft of a camera in the hold luggage), my on-the-ground experiences kick Kenya Airways firmly into the airline trash can of "only fly with ‘em if no one else goes there".
My experience sadly offers a poor impression of an airline with a proud slogan of "The Pride of Africa". In any case, didn't they realise that pride comes before a fall?
Kenya Airways on the ground
For our trip to Madagascar we had a couple of options; we could catch a flight to Paris, and fly via Air France or Air Madagascar, or we could fly down to London and then catch a Kenya Airways flight via Nairobi. Considering that on our initial investigation, the France option would require an overnight hotel at the airport, and the Kenya Airways flights were priced a couple of hundred pounds cheaper, Kenya Airways seemed the reasonable option.
Unfortunately, a few weeks before we were due to travel, upset struck as one of the parents of one of our travelling companions sadly died.
Kenya Airways initially seemed to handle the situation perfectly, as they offered us all a full refund for our flights and waiving the normal £150 cost of cancelation per person.
I understand that this was more to do with the then UK Foreign Office advice not to fly to Madagascar because of the recent presidential coup, rather than for any sympathetic reasons. No matter, it seemed we would be able to reschedule our flights hassle free, and without recourse to our insurers.
One initial strange twist that should have set alarm bells ringing was that we had initially simply asked Kenya Airways to transfer the flight dates for us to a later date. They told us that while they would waive the cancellation fee, they wouldn't waive the transfer fee. Consequently, cancelling and rebooking the flights would be the cheaper option for us, although we were happy with a straight transfer of dates. This act alerted us to the fact that the price of flights had actually dropped considerably over the summer, and for the four of us flights in October were now £350 cheaper. It seemed a rather strange way to do business, but seemed like good news for us.
The long saga of getting our Kenya Airways refund
Unfortunately, early on in the "refund process" we discovered that Air Kenya staff apparently couldn't cope with the most basic of arithmetic, and our credit card was credited with a number of different sums, none of which made any sense to us. It seemed at first, Kenya Airways thought one person had booked flights (we had booked for four) and refunded accordingly just one fare. Then when we corrected them, rather than add a refund for another three people, they made the refund for three in total.
After a number of e-mails querying the position, Kenya Airways finally managed to get us to the position where the £150 cancellation fee had been taken from each person's flight. At least we could finally understand their maths, even if the refund didn't accord with their initial promise.
By this point, our travelling companions who live in London (and who had made the flight arrangements), had made face to face and phone call contact with staff at the Kenya Airways customer service office, and continued to battle to obtain only what Kenya Airways initially promised. After visits to the office, and a promise of a bottle of wine for sorting out the refund, we finally received the full amount due; at this point the refund process had taken almost 4 months and around a dozen e-mails, phone calls and visits.
We were seriously reconsidering the wisdom of our choice of Kenya Airways; if they couldn't organise a simple refund transaction in 4 months, how would they ever manage to transfer our luggage to the right destination? Unfortunately, the unreasonable delay with obtaining our refund had robbed us of choice. At the point we first might have been able to re-book, the Kenya Airways price for our four flights had dropped by around £350, and the Air France price was also cheaper than our original flight price. By the time we finally had the cash to rebook, both airlines had increased their prices to more than we had originally paid. To be fair to Kenya Airways, they readily recognised their delay with paying our refund and agreed to honour the earlier price.
While I remained a little discontent to give our money to an airline that had messed us around so much, by this point we had little option but to rebook with them. While it personally galled me to offer Kenya Airways yet more money, as a party we agreed we would use our "windfall" to buy a little more comfort from Kenya Airways, and book the extra legroom seats on the emergency exits, which cost an additional £50 per person each way.
We spoke to our (by now very familiar) contact at Kenya Airways and explained that we felt we were due a little extra for the inconvenience and hassle we had suffered in just obtaining back what was originally promised.
After speaking to the Customer Services Manager, we were given the (as it turned out vague) offer of access to the business lounges on the next flights. We interpreted this to mean that we could access business lounges at Heathrow and Nairobi for the whole party, and our main contact at Kenya Airways appeared to agree, and confirmed that access to these lounges had been arranged for the travelling party.
The long saga of the Kenya Airways Business Lounge Battle
A few days before our flight, we contact our customer services contact to confirm that all was well with the arrangements.
The customer service manager responded, and at this late point clarified that the offer of the business lounge access applied only to the person who had made the initial payment on behalf of us four. I felt a little sorry for the man; he must have friends who would think nothing of enjoying the business lounge facilities while his travelling companions wandered round the concourse.
I e-mailed the customer service manager at this point to ask whether he imagined our travel companion might be able to wave at us through the door of the business lounge from time to time. I also queried why the other customer service representative appeared to believe the offer was available to all four travellers (and gave a copy e-mail from her to confirm it). My e-mail was ignored; obviously Kenya Airways only identify customers to be those with the credit card, rather than those travelling (even though we had of course individually paid our share).
Obviously, Kenya Airways do not appreciate the basic principle of being very clear about any offer, and not overselling their offer. Instead, through contact with his paying customer, he agreed that the four of us could access the Nairobi Lounge on the return. As this was a six hour layover, this was the most useful to us.
The sorry saga of our attempts to give Kenya Airways More Money
I am one that likes to cut off my own nose to spite my face, so I trusted our friend's suggestion to use our windfall cheaper airfare to buy the emergency exit extra legroom seats for £50 each, each way.
He finally managed to get the customer services section to agree to reserve the emergency exit seats on the way out from Heathrow. At check in we explained our request, and the check in woman explained she didn't take cash, and we would need to go to the Kenya Airways desk when it opened at 4:00 pm. She checked us into another seat, so we could deposit our hold luggage.
At the opening time of the desk, there were a small queue of people waiting. Forty minutes of waiting later, an unhurried, relaxed Kenya Airways uniformed woman strolled in; sorted out her dinner, and finally opened the desk.
We spoke with her, and she accepted our £200. She then explained that we would need to back to the check in queue to have our seat tickets amended. Another queue later, it was done. At least we had an hour and a half to kill at the airport, although Kenya Airways over the previous months had already wasted quite enough of my life.
On our return, we asked at Madagascar airport check in for the extra room seats from Kenya to London, and was rather sharply told to do it at Kenya Airport. Unfortunately, this was a woman with attitude and she was not for discussion.
At the Kenya Airways business lounge, we asked if they could sort it for us, and were directed to the main customer service desk as she couldn't accept cash.
At the desk, we waited 40 minutes, only to be told rather bizarrely that our plane had no emergency exits! When we queried the row and whether we could change our seats to sit at the row we knew to have emergency exits, we were told that all the seats in the row were booked. This was patently untrue as we discovered a half empty plane when we left (I wonder why!).
Back to the business lounge, we queried why it was proving so difficult to give Kenya Airways more money. Fortunately, the desk staff was more helpful this time, and arranged for someone to speak with us. This person confirmed seats were available, but we would need to pay cash, and in US dollars. To pay by card, would require us to go through Kenya immigration! Considering that the London customer service office had quoted us a price from Nairobi in Euros, it seemed strange that we couldn't actually pay in Euros. Still, why was I surprised that Kenya Airways had told us something that turned out to be wrong?
We went with the assistant and changed our Euros for Dollars, and she then took our passports, our flight cards, our cash, and after 30 minutes returned with the extra leg room tickets. Again, it was a good job we had a couple of hours to kill at the airport (and to fair by this time it had become a sport just to see how long it would take to resolve), but it was yet more time Kenya Airways had stolen from us resolving a transaction that should have been simple.
One little point to make about the extra legroom seats, is that they get served last for food; meaning that we paid extra and ended up with no food choice. A final nice little touch from those caring folks at Kenya Airways: the pride of Africa.
Finally, the saga of our flights and the stolen camera at Kenya Airways
Actually, although I'd like to trash the flights just as much as I have the customer services, they weren't too bad.
The Kenya Airways staff were polite, and efficient. The safety instructions were clear and effective, and with one exception (an hour's delay at Madagascar) on time. I clocked the plane codes, and unusually for an African Airline, the planes were fairly modern at 4 and 7 years old. The interior of the airline looked clean and tidy, the washrooms were regularly tidied up, and we all received a pillow and blanket (although the plane was very warm in any case).
The control panel with the seats were a little misaligned. My reading light button turned on the light for the aisle seat customer; meanwhile his personal TV screen didn't work (I did try my controls to see if they helped!). My seat was a little wonky and fell back on its own accord if I crossed my legs. It didn't trouble me unduly, but I imagine it annoyed the person sitting behind.
After one film for our night flight, they turned off the entertainment system. I got through 20 minutes of the latest Star Trek movie before it went dead. Apart from the comparatively short time it was available, the film choice was reasonable, with around a dozen films to choose, and a dozen music channels. The magazine was a little out of date and well thumbed; according to the front it was the August/September edition, and was still on display at the end of October. The magazine didn't have a lot in it, in any case.
Drinks were reasonable, and passengers could help themselves to more at the back of the plane if they wished. I was content with the rather nice small bottle of Chilean Merlot with my meal.
The food was quite acceptable, with a salmon bake on the way out, and a lamb or chicken curry on return (although not the best options for someone with a stomach bug!). My beloved's vegetarian option arrived each time, although it arrived well ahead of my standard choice. Breakfast fortunately was of the continental style, rather than those horrible omelettes that some airlines try to serve.
For out flight between Kenya and Madagascar, things were a little shabbier. The main screens didn't work at the back of the plane (no individual screens), and Nairobi Airport felt more like a bus station, as everyone piled out of the airport to see a long line of planes, with the destination on boards at the front of the plane! I'm sure the health and safety executive at Heathrow would have kittens.
Of course, we had a little sting at the end of our flight as one of our travelling companions found his camera missing from the hold luggage. I suspect my "ring of dirty laundry" carefully placed right at the entrance of my rucksack helped sticky fingers steer away from my belongings! Obviously, it may not be the fault of Kenya Airways staff but the luggage was in their care, and the experience just reinforced my "steer clear" recommendation.
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cr01 asserts his right to be associated as the author of this review -2009-
Recommended:
No
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cr01
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Member: Chris
Location: Yorkshire, England
Reviews written: 437
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In snowy Yorkshire. Dusting down the Sledge.
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