Cebu Pacific does it again!

06Aug08

I read in the Philippine Daily Inquirer today about Cebu Pacific’s mess with their transfer to the new airport T3. Cancelled flights, 5-hour delays, poor customer service — you name it, they’ve got it. Here are some interesting examples of Cebu Pacific horror stories from my own network alone. These are stories told to me by friends, colleagues, business partners and even those experienced myself.

• A business partner arrived early at the airport for their flight from Manila to Cebu, and they were offered by Cebu Pacific crew to catch the earlier flight since they were on time for it anyway. They were happy to have been offered the slots. When they boarded the plane, they were greeted with sarcastic cheers and glaring stares from passengers who have waited a while for the plane to depart. This was highly publicized in Cebu’s local papers because they wanted an apology for the public humiliation, but Cebu Pacific never released one nor did they get sympathy from the plane’s crew.
• On our Bangkok-Cebu flight, we were rerouted to Bangkok-Manila-Cebu and when we arrived in our city we were greeted with our damaged luggages early in the morning. We had to properly negotiate with their third party baggage handler to shoulder the costs for the damaged bags.
• Booking online on a Cebu Pacific promo period is never easy.  It’s even worse when you choose a date only to find out that the wrong date is printed out in the final receipt. I had to pay Php3,000 in rebooking fees to get the dates right. I thought this maybe an isolated case, but my colleague experience the same thing. I emailed Cebu Pacific’s customer service about the incident, but I never got a reply.
• I applied for a refund for a domestic flight over the phone. The customer service representative assured me that she got all the details right, and there was no need to visit their office anymore. Processsing time was 60 days. Sixty days came, and no refund was made. I inquired about it again in their office, and they told me that there was no request made for the refund at all. I’m not counting on getting my refund soon. Some say it will take a year before they could actually process it. This is really absurd, and I don’t know why Cebu Pacific doesn’t come true to their word. I applied for a refund with Asian Spirit before, and the money was given back to me on time.

The list goes on and on. I remember an interesting conversation about this with a colleague while we were waiting for our flight back to Cebu, after we dropped by Manila from Bangkok. She said that customers from Cebu Pacific are only getting what they’re paying for.

I don’t believe that just because they offer cheap flights, they have a right to treat customers unfairly. The mere fact that their crew does not even handle customers’ complaints well is a blatant sign that Cebu Pacific doesn’t believe in ethics. It’s basic human need to be treated with care and respect, and Cebu Pacific clearly has not instilled this in their crew. Complaints about their operations are a given. Yes, we might be getting what we’re paying for. However, handling these complaints properly is a entirely different thing. What’s the cost of putting on a smile when dealing with a  customer? Or listening emphatically to their complaints? Or offering them solutions before the customer asks for it?

With the way Cebu Pacific has been running their company, they clearly do not recognize the value of their customers. Maybe it won’t be long before everyone gets fed up with them and soon they’ll follow the footsteps of budget airline companies who have gone bankrupt and folded up.

Filed under: Business, Reviews   |  11 Comments
Tags: airline companies, budget airlines, business ethics, cebu pacific, cebu pacific complaints, customer service, customer value, T3