HOW TO WRITE A COMPLAINT LETTER TO AN AIRLINE (and perhaps get a redress)

One of the “Daunting task” about having a Travel agency and Travel blog is to be able to attend to all the phone calls, emails, whatsapp messages and social media interactions that I have to deal with almost on a daily basis regardless of time of the day.

But of recent, there have been quite a number of messages that I received from people telling me about their experiences with airline operators. Honestly, many of the complains could make BREAKING NEWS in our national dailies while others were just too damned ridiculous.

In as much as I believe that some of the complains were good cases for lawsuits, the rest complainants went about making their displeasure known in a totally wrong manner.

I have seen where displeased airline passengers embarked on #twitter and #Facebook warfare like some ill-manned netizens...........

ILL MANNERED NETIZEN

They will curse and swear at the airline all in a bid to lay a complain and it just rubs me the wrong way.

Yesterday, I received a carbon copy (cc) email from an aggrieved passenger who had contacted Arik Air, and I think that the letter was written in a pretty right tone and explanation of what happened. So I decided to share it as a guide on HOW TO WRITE A COMPLAINT LETTER TO AN AIRLINE

Here is the letter that was written to Arik Air and cc’d to me:

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Greetings,

I normally am not too irritated regarding moderately delayed flights. However, the hassle I experienced today trying to get to Accra from MMA - Nigeria was just unacceptable.

I am not oblivious to the plight of airline operations. There has been a devastating combination of events since January 1 and it has continued to snowball into one big mess. If it’s not birds today, it will be weather or new crew rest rules to name a few. With that being said, yesterday I volunteered to surrender my seat because you needed 10 volunteers for my flight. I actually had fairly flexible travel plans so leaving the next day (today) didn’t really faze me. The person who got my seat was very thankful as they were trying to get somewhere for a family event and that was worth it for me. So this morning when I awoke I decided to check and see how the flights were doing. As it turns out again your first two flights of the day eventually cancelled.

As the day trudged on, I eventually got the dreaded phone call from one of your customer care agents saying my flight was delayed. I am not writing this to stomp my feet and say I will never fly you again, because I will. But, if you could partner will other airlines and manage to implement mandated changes, it won’t give me pause as to your capability to safely get me where I need to go.

Best wishes for 2016.
From Damilola (Aggrieved Passenger)
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The writer of this COMPLAINT LETTER was calm and Understanding. He tried to acknowledge the complexities of air travel and was still able to make his displeasure known. Why can’t more complaint letters be like this?

I think we can all learn a thing or two from this letter — how to write a proper airline letter and have a proper attitude about dealing with airlines. What do you think? I would to hear from you.

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