Overbooked flights, bad customer service: Boycott as best revenge for ‘Every Juan’s’ travails

The nonliability aspect in Cebu Pacific’s apology for flight “disruptions” (“Cebu Pacific sorry for ‘disruptions’, vows to resolve ‘challenges’” Inquirer.net, 6/21/23) following a Senate hearing, with no less than the airline’s chief commercial officer Alexander Lao in attendance, is simply unacceptable.

There should be more than just “sorry” as a response to the spate of complaints hurled at Cebu Pacific because every Juan does not deserve delayed or overbooked flights as a matter of course. The “disruptions” attributed “primarily” to fleet availability issues do not address the root cause of the problem, but may just be an alibi for the airline to get away with its bad service. Does Cebu Pacific adhere to quality management system? It seems the concept of customer satisfaction is not in its vocabulary or in its operations manual. Its “Let’s fly every Juan” slogan may also be blamed for its incompetent service, with its employees deaf and blind to the customers’ plight.

Allow me to share why I boycotted Cebu Pacific: In May 2022, my Manila-Tacloban flight with my daughter was rescheduled just days before we were to leave, despite it being booked months prior to the May 2022 elections. Instead of a direct flight, ours was redirected to Calbayog, forcing us to go through additional trouble and expense as we had to travel from Calbayog to Catbalogan, and from there to Eastern Samar. That was a terrible experience as we wanted to cast our votes in our hometown, Taft.

A similar ordeal happened in October 2021, when four of us in the family flew with Cebu Pacific. Our checked-in luggage (two pieces of 20 kilos each) were not allowed for check-in because, according to the airline, we were late by seven minutes. Never mind if we had paid for it in advance, and had used the web check-in. How ridiculous that we, as passengers, could take the flight sans our luggage. My request to have our baggage loaded on the next available flight was denied outright. Option provided? We should call a relative to pick up our offloaded luggage since Cebu Pacific does not have a storage facility. So my cousin decided to book the next available flight via Philippine Airlines with our baggage, while my girls and I proceeded with our trip. Our bonding moment on that trip was ruined, and our arrival schedule in Tacloban was mixed up, because the flight was delayed for almost an hour. Cebu Pacific said the delay was due to air traffic.

Other red flags of its bad service: It once denied my request to have a “fragile” label on my checked-in luggage, a common enough practice in other airlines. It also ordered my daughter to stuff her laptop inside her hand-carry instead of her carrying it separately. It also refused to allow in two small cartons of foodstuff that weighed far below 20 kilos, insisting on its one baggage/20-kilo policy. No option was provided, except that I had to get out of the airport to buy packaging tape. Which meant traveling back to downtown. Can’t Cebu Pacific provide its check-in counters with packaging tape? Or was that just a ploy for passengers to pay more in baggage fees?

Then there was this small bottle of atchara (pickles) that an aunt had prepared, but which the airline disallowed for “safety” reasons despite the bottle being properly sealed and packed inside my checked-in luggage. I was honest enough to tell the Cebu Pacific staff about it, but ended up looking for a guard outside to be the recipient of the prized atchara.For all these examples of bad service, there’s no staff to attend to complaints personally. One has to deal with a robot that consumes much of one’s time, but arrives at no resolution at the end of the chat. If Philippine Airlines and AirAsia have human beings who deal with complaints and queries from clients, why can’t Cebu Pacific do the same? Cost-cutting?

The above incidents are not isolated cases. A lawyer boss of mine was shocked to find out that he had to pay for his luggage upon check-in despite having purchased add-on baggage prior to his flight. He ended up paying double for the “system error” attributed to the mess. A doctor friend has her own bad moments with the airline and so did some senators who were at the hearing.

As a proactive customer, I have given the airline the benefit of the doubt but have now realized it isn’t worth it anymore. Why patronize Cebu Pacific when its competitors offer a better flying experience, with no hassles, and cheaper even? And as a person who loves to travel as a form of therapy, I already have bookings, not just for this year, but even for summer of 2024. Of course, never ever via Cebu Pacific.

BELEN DOCENA-ASUELO
bdasuelo@yahoo.com