Interesting Skyteam Data (from their website):
Destinations: 926
Countries: 173
Daily Departures: Approximately 14,500
Annual Passengers: 487 million
Frequent Flyer Members: 151 million
Number of Lounges: 490
Fleet: 2,431 mainline fleet (+1,111 from related carriers)
Year of Formation: 2000
Employees: 399,469
Destinations: 926
Countries: 173
Daily Departures: Approximately 14,500
Annual Passengers: 487 million
Frequent Flyer Members: 151 million
Number of Lounges: 490
Fleet: 2,431 mainline fleet (+1,111 from related carriers)
Year of Formation: 2000
Employees: 399,469
So today I decided to take on the mundane task of doing seat selection on our 19 flights on 9 airlines (none of which were on our booking carrier Delta by some odd chance). The Delta RTW desk staff (several of whom have been overwhelmingly helpful during my five 2+ hour phone calls with them) were able to do direct seat assignments for only the Air France flights. The agent sent a digital message to an Alaska Air agent while we were on the phone and Alaska assigned us seats without difficulty. For the remainder of our flights I was given 14 different reservation codes (one for each of us for each of the airlines) and 7 different 800 numbers.
You might wonder why I care about seat assignment.. The only reason I did was because in order to book two award tickets one must make two separate reservations which have no links to each other in the reservations systems.. In order to make sure we were issued seats together, I had to manually reserve them. The thought of flying 14 hours without Christian poking me in the side every 10 minutes is unacceptable so I took about dialing the 800 numbers...
Each airline has an amazingly different culture.
I first called AeroMexico and had to be transferred twice to get an English speaking reservations agent and even then I had to speak very slowly and mostly in Spanglish. 20 minutes, seats assigned. Not very helpful, but not rude.
Next I called Hawaiian and was obviously routed to the Philippines. As I have an unexplainable attraction to singsong accents and being called sir at least 4 times per sentence, this call was a pleasure. Seats assigned, no problems. And BOY do they appreciate our business!
From there on, not so good.
China Eastern: promptly answered but literally yelled at me for bothering them with such trivial matters. She decided to assign seats after telling me that the reservations number was for buying new tickets only. She then hung up on me.
China Southern? Reservations only open M-F 9-5 Pacific. No luck
Alitalia: on hold forever, agent with thick accent picked up but didn't say hello until finishing the conversation in Italian he was having with the person next to him. He eventually understood what I was asking for although he seemed befuddled by why I cared. He assigned us transatlantic seats but said that intra-Europe has to be assigned at the gate. Oh well.
So, why did I waste your time with this silliness (other than to try out the new blogging app I downloaded for my iPad)? Because I think something as simple as the attitude that each company exhibits through their customer "service" agents represents the overall travel experience that we will have with them. We'll see if my prediction turns out to be true.
In any case, this is the adventure of a lifetime and it's going to be exciting, challenging, and complex no matter what. Even if not a single thing works out the way we plan, I know that we will have the times of our lives!
Cya! E.
You might wonder why I care about seat assignment.. The only reason I did was because in order to book two award tickets one must make two separate reservations which have no links to each other in the reservations systems.. In order to make sure we were issued seats together, I had to manually reserve them. The thought of flying 14 hours without Christian poking me in the side every 10 minutes is unacceptable so I took about dialing the 800 numbers...
Each airline has an amazingly different culture.
I first called AeroMexico and had to be transferred twice to get an English speaking reservations agent and even then I had to speak very slowly and mostly in Spanglish. 20 minutes, seats assigned. Not very helpful, but not rude.
Next I called Hawaiian and was obviously routed to the Philippines. As I have an unexplainable attraction to singsong accents and being called sir at least 4 times per sentence, this call was a pleasure. Seats assigned, no problems. And BOY do they appreciate our business!
From there on, not so good.
China Eastern: promptly answered but literally yelled at me for bothering them with such trivial matters. She decided to assign seats after telling me that the reservations number was for buying new tickets only. She then hung up on me.
China Southern? Reservations only open M-F 9-5 Pacific. No luck
Alitalia: on hold forever, agent with thick accent picked up but didn't say hello until finishing the conversation in Italian he was having with the person next to him. He eventually understood what I was asking for although he seemed befuddled by why I cared. He assigned us transatlantic seats but said that intra-Europe has to be assigned at the gate. Oh well.
So, why did I waste your time with this silliness (other than to try out the new blogging app I downloaded for my iPad)? Because I think something as simple as the attitude that each company exhibits through their customer "service" agents represents the overall travel experience that we will have with them. We'll see if my prediction turns out to be true.
In any case, this is the adventure of a lifetime and it's going to be exciting, challenging, and complex no matter what. Even if not a single thing works out the way we plan, I know that we will have the times of our lives!
Cya! E.
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