[ChrisR]

Originally Posted by tomw

Lufthansa has NO customer service. This is not a judgment, it is a fact.

They have customers and they have procedures. This works when things go as planned. But when things do not go as planned, companies rely upon customer service. Lufthansa does not. They do ont rely upon customer service because in the face of crisis or a breakdown in the system they do not deviate from their normal operating procedures. For this reason Lufthansa has designed a system to keep customers out of the way. They have built an impenetrable wall to keep customers out.
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Customer service fills the void between customers and procedures. Lufthansa is in denial. For them: things go right and they follow normal operating procedures: or things go wrong, and they follow normal operating procedures. Nothing changes. That is why they don't need customer service. In their world customers merely get in the way of normal operating procedures. And when things go wrong Lufthansa's answer is to bear down and focus more on normal operating procedures. The need for this intensified focus is only distracted by customers, so they designed a system to keep customers out of their way. Hence, the Lufthansa impenetrable wall of no communication, no service and no concern - that is their business model.
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a) I would like to second the sentiments expressed above. I have just returned after 2 days stranded in FRA and thought that are a number of things I am grateful for (hotels, taxis, meal vouchers and English speaking agents) there are serious structural flaws with the Lufthansa's approach to doing business that destroy customer satisfaction, risk passenger safety and unnecessarily add costs to all of us.

Tomw captures it very well when he says "in the face of crisis or a breakdown in the system they do not deviate from their normal operating procedures….They have built an impenetrable wall to keep customers out ...For them: things go right and they follow normal operating procedures: or things go wrong, and they follow normal operating procedures. Nothing changes. "

In a serious emergency they may put a few extra agents on but they do not rise to handle the emergency:
i) My flight landed on Tue 21 Dec 2010 in FRA but onward flight was cancelled. 5 hours of waiting in a line got me to an agent who re-booked me on a LH flight the next day as a standby passenger. The correct thing would have been to staff with more people, handle customers faster (print taxi vouchers not hand write them!), and better procedures (I should have been put on another airline with a confirmed seat). Agent issued 2 hotel vouchers and 1 taxi voucher - personally piad for 1 taxi ride
ii) The second day was wasted waiting as standby on two flights to EWR where the chance of success was minuscule - 50 waitlists - 4 accepted. The planes were already at capacity at Christmas. Good idea to waitlist missed flights under normal circumstances - but when you have 2+ days of missed flights there are too many passengers to fit on subsequent flights!
iii) Sent to another line the customer service counter at 5:15 pm in Terminal A near gate 58 on 22 Dec 2010 - after 15 mins we were informed that there shift was over and that we would have to go stand in another line for 4+ hours (after being on standby for 8 hours). Complaints that closing a customer service counter at normal hours did not make sense under the circumstances were met with incredulity. Quitting time was quitting time - 2-6 days of cancelled flights and thousands of stranded passenger notwithstanding. The lady's humanity was a bit weak and/or some serious customer service training is needed
iv) Went to the mezzanine level of Terminal B on 22 Dec for re-ticketing and waited 4 hours - 5:30 to 10:30 pm for them to clear about 120 people. LH had about 10 agents but their efficiency seems to be too low (the agents are courteous but too slow and hindered by weak systems). Again manual issue of Hotel and taxi vouchers. This time booked on Singapore Airline with a seat assignment (FRA-EWR) - system can assign a seat but not issue a boarding pass so have to make do with 4 hours sleep to come early. If booking on another airline had been done a day earlier - one day could have been saved. My seatmate on 23 Dec had booked the day before and got on - capacity was available on other airlines to clear out FRA!! 3 agents were controlling hundreds of passengers while the 10 agents process them. 2 of them could have been converted to agents to process passengers
v) Overall, big emergencies need to be handled by senior managers and with special procedures. More aggressive backlog clearing (buy off German passengers and send them home). 2+ days in hotels+meals+taxis is more expensive than paying compensation and sending as many people home as possible). No one was thinking out to the box and focusing on the customer pain.
vi) On arrival in JFK instead of EWR on Singapore Airlines my suitcase did not arrive. With 3 hours notice why could LH not pull my suitcase and get it on a Singapore Airlines flight?

Other miscellaneous comments worth mentioning:
i) I am an engineer and travel in Sweden and Canada extensively - I was not convinced that there was lot of snow or that the near freezing conditions could not have been handled better with significantly less cost and customer dissatisfaction with better snow removal and de-icing equipment. Perhaps someone could comments on FRA equipment vs Montreal (YUL)
ii) There were many people who were not allowed to go to hotels in Germany - they had to sleep in the airport for 2+ days. I tried to help and spoke to German Immigration - they had the Lufthansa sense of customer service - normal rules needed to be followed even in the middle of a snow emergency when they made no sense. I was trying to help a 62 year old Ethiopian couple, who had never left their country before and had a visa for the US. Why would they flee in Germany in the middle of a snow storm when they could go to Florida and do it there? Perhaps German Immigration had good reasons. If so, then these passengers who were really stranded in the airport should have been cleared first.
iii) There should be out reach to the weakest. The Ethiopian man was diabetic but being new to Germany did not know how to distinguish the bread from the almond pastries offered. He ate nothing. He did not speak English that well had a great file of his travel documents - he was routed to EWR instead of Orlando - waitlist. I believe that people who did not speak English and did not accustomed to asking for service suffered the most. No telephone vouchers were available for him to phone his son. Without my help the Ethiopian couple could have stayed in FRA for days - I wonder if someday someone will die of neglect. Folks without hotels should be cleared, along with the young children, first. Not business travellers first. Not in an emergency.
iv) There was some information floating around that it had been 20 years since a snow storm of this magnitude. However, a LH agent said that 10 months earlier things had been worse during the volcano. LH had not learned to handle emergencies in spite of recent failures in their disaster preparedness. I believe there were other similar circumstances - large scale passenger stranding is more frequent than we believe.


I would like Lufthansa to succeed. The EU has created legislation in EU 261 to enforce standards - Lufthansa needs to rise to meet the spirit of the demands on duty of care. The current processes, systems and attitude are a far cry from what needs to be done. I do not think there is enough motivation to improve on Lufthansa's part. Perhaps the EU should enforce compensation payments so that LH finds it too expensive to leave poor snow removal equipment, weak procedures and systems to transfer passengers to other airlines and poor customer service as the norm. Change must be effected!