Shenzhen Airlines- in need of a bailout

I don't want to heap more coals but Shenzhen Airlines has done it again. I look the other way when small companies do things a little differently than I would do it but an airline company with personal vendettas against their customers!

Booked a flight to Shenzhen last week but had to adjust the return flight due to circumstances out of my control. I simply want to change from a Sunday flight on Shenzhen Airlines to a Monday flight on Shenzhen Airlines. I call my booking agency and they can't make the change because Shenzhen Airlines only allows Shenzhen Airlines to alter bookings once they are made. Fine. A phone number is given and I begin talking to the reps at Shenzhen Airlines. Turns out they, Shenzhen Airlines, don't have the ability to change flights either. Why? No particular reason. But turns out the only way to alter anything on a booked flight is to go directly to the Shenzhen Airline office at the airport????? I am sorry but I am not taking a taxi across the city to make a simple change on my booking which they would have charged me a few hundred RMB to have done anyways. But here's what I did do, I canceled my flight all together and booked a new one on Air China which despite the 84 RMB cancellation fee, ended up saving me 16 RMB because my new flight on Air China ended up being 100 RMB cheaper than my previous Shenzhen Airlines flight. I explained this to Shenzhen Airlines to give them a chance to keep my booking and redeem themselves. Not interested. Didn't bother them much that they were going to lose the entire booking to a competitor. Unfathomable.

You may be thinking why does he keep booking and dealing with Shenzhen Airlines. I may despise their tactics but when you have to fly often to Shenzhen and you fly on a budget then you are almost always going to choose the cheapest flight...which 99% of the time is Shenzhen Airlines. Believe me if I had another choice... I would take it.

Of course, my hand may be forced if I end up getting black listed.

Shenzhen Airlines: "delivering passengers close to their destinations- guaranteed"

I am a fan of Ctrip.

I am not a fan of Shenzhen Airlines.

A few weeks back I was flying from Kunming to Shenzhen when something peculiar happened. We landed instead in the city of Guangzhou. We were making our approach to Shenzhen when our plane pulled dramatically out of our descent. (You would think that the more and more you do something the more comfortable you would feel about doing it, but this doesn't seem to be the case with flying. Every time I fly I think it makes me feel more uneasy.) We circled for 30 minutes and it wasn't until we began making our descent again that the flight attendants began casually giving us the weather in Guangzhou, a city 100 km north-west of Shenzhen. We were landing in the wrong city.

While parked on the tarmac in Guangzhou, we were told that there may have been weather in Shenzhen and that we may or may not continue our flight to Shenzhen in the near future. After a half hour of the same information being passed along, passengers began getting anxious for a few reasons 1) most had called friends and family in Shenzhen to discover no reports of abnormal weather 2) flight attendants had no information whatsoever whether or not we would continue on to Shenzhen and 3) nobody likes feeling trapped on an airplane with no idea when you will be able to get off. Two hours pass and we are finally given the option to get off the plane to wait while they make a decision about our flight.

Then there was thirty more minutes of standing on the bus and multitudes of people standing on the tarmac arguing with the flight officials to find out if the flight will ever go to Shenzhen and how exactly we will be notified of such event. Everyone is then instructed to get on the bus so we can go into the terminal or to a hotel but when everyone complies the flight officials instruct the bus driver to shut the bus doors not so we can head back to the terminal but rather to keep us from causing trouble for the flight officials. Crafty.

None of this bothered me too much because I figured we will be taken care of or some sort of reparations would be made. Dealing with Shenzhen airline officials the next day crushed any of those hopes. Instead they strongly denied the flight had ever landed in Guangzhou because the computer clearly showed that the flight arrived in Shenzhen (eventually.) They also absolutely refused to make up for the costs I incurred to make my own arrangements from Guangzhou to Shenzhen. In fact, they pulled out of all the stops and used two of the most effective anti-customer service tactics in the handbook for these sorts of things.

Tactic #1- Formlessness

“Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.” ~ Sun Tzu “Art of War”

If the customer thinks I am not listening to them or hearing anything they are saying, then they will surely surrender out of hopelessness. I can also throw in a blank undetermined stare off into the distance to help speed up their surrender. If all else fails stare directly at the customer and continue to ignore them so they know exactly which tactic you are using. This will either cause them to wither or completely snap. Much like this woman.

Tactic #2- Deception

“All warfare is based on deception” ~ Sun Tzu “Art of War”

If the customer ever has a legitimate concern or makes a good point, never hesitate to deceive that customer. Tell them 没有办法 (mei you ban fa) or literally there is nothing that can be done. No matter how ridiculous this statement may be in any given situation, use it to explain why you can’t or don’t want to do something. How can a customer argue with something that is impossible? Similarly, try saying it’s against the rules. If something is against the rules how can anyone argue with that. Do not be baited into explaining what rules exactly is or where the rule is coming from, just simply reiterate that it is in fact against the rules.

Personally, I don’t mind and I actually expect to not receive any customer service in my dealings here but it’s the going out of your way to stick it to the customer that drives me a little wild. But since I am not leaving any time soon ... 没有办法.