Following on from my recent posting, Properly Mugged in Singapore, regarding certain difficulties with a flight I'd booked with Silk Air, I wrote to them requesting an explanation.
I received a reply that unsurprisingly was big on rhetoric and small on action. In terms of an explanation it was extraordinarily weak and confessed to some revealing shortcomings in their operations. Despite this, there was no offer of any compensation for the loss and distress caused apart from now not charging me the S$150 for the "No Show". This hardly a constitutes a refund but is more like giving back to me something they shouldn't have extorted from me in the first place. And I still have to wait 8 ~ 10 weeks for the refund.
A full and total refund for the cost of the flight was the very least I was hoping for but despite being given back the No Show deduction the cancellation fee still applies, which is salt in my wounds as I consider I was forced to cancel the flight and it was not done through choice or through my own free will.
The letter ended with: "We value your support and we look forward to having you and your fiancé on a flight with us soon.", which I broadly interpret as saying, "Fly with us and we'll continue to shaft you the minute you step out of line (whether it's our fault or yours) but we figure you're stupid enough carry on flying with us".
Am I surprised? No. Will I travel with Silk Air or Singapore Airlines again? I'll do whatever I can to avoid doing so.
I do of course understand that I'm only a tiny fish in a very big tank in terms of customer base but if everyone maintained some principles and acted on them then maybe, just maybe, the big corporations and in particularly the airlines, might just sit up and take notice.
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