myguideTravel Blog

A lesson learned: Choose your partners carefully!

November 11th, 2007

Thursday, November 1st, 2007 was a day of celebration in the myguideTravel offices. It wasn’t that we enjoyed a record haul of candy on Halloween but rather that our contract with the Scottish airline flyGlobespan expired. For those of you unfamiliar with them, please allow me to explain why it was such a joyous occasion. In late 2006, we partnered with Ireland West Airport Knock to establish the first scheduled trans-Atlantic air services from it to the USA. The team at IWA Knock worked tirelessly to get the service up and running and we supported the launch of the non-stop flights to Boston Logan and New York JFK airports by taking a hard block of inventory from flyGlobespan on all their departures. It was a massive financial commitment for us but we felt that it was a prudent investment and that we were entering into a mutually beneficial partnership with the airport authority and airline to ensure the success of the endeavor. There was plenty of enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic and, with Tourism Ireland also offering support, we were convinced it was going to be a success. Boy, were we wrong!

The new routes were to be seasonal, starting in May and running through October. All of us involved were very excited about being part of something so historic. We were delighted to be a partner in opening up the beautiful West & Northwest of Ireland to visitors from the US. Our sales & marketing department focused on it and products were created to promote vacations to the region to take advantage of the new services.

So, what went wrong with flyGlobespan? Well, it would probably be less time consuming to list what went right. Not only did they have an embarrassingly poor on-time performance on both routes, but they also exhibited some of the worst customer service I have ever been witness to. They were habitually late and to add insult to injury they offered no flight information, whether through their website or via telephone or at the airports. But, the most appalling incident occurred the week of June 28, 2007 when hundreds of passengers were left stranded at both JFK and IWA Knock airports for nearly a week without any support or assistance from the airline as flyGlobespan canceled service 4 days in a row. Then, in a shameless attempt to shirk responsibility for their incompetence, they used the security incident at Glasgow International Airport on June 30, 2007 as the reason why they were unable to run their schedule. Imagine that! Using something that happened on June 30 to explain why their flights on June 28 and 29 were canceled! For all we criticize flyGlobespan for, we certainly can’t take issue with the creativity of their PR department.

Not only did their disgraceful handling of this situation inconvenience hundreds of stranded passengers directly affected, it also lead to a (well founded) eroding of confidence in their service. With all the negative publicity surrounding this incident and the mess of delays & lack of customer service for the entire program, we saw bookings die down and many Guests canceled previously booked future reservations. Additionally, our splendid myguideIreland team had to redouble their efforts to ensure any effects on our Guests & their holidays were as minimized as possible. In a nutshell, it was a disaster.

Nevertheless, more was to come as flyGlobespan were apparently not finished wreaking havoc on our Guests who decided to follow through with their vacation plans. Moving towards the end of the season, we were advised by the carrier that the remaining schedule was to be ‘consolidated’ and that the flights between Boston & IWA Knock moved to different days. Thus, we had to contact all our Guests booked on these flights and advise them that they had to adjust their travel plans accordingly to fit the new schedule. I truly pitied our team at myguideIreland who had to contact Guests (many of whom had travel confirmed for several months) to tell them they had to leave 2 days earlier or return 3 days later than planned. Our Guests were justifiably upset and, of course, flyGlobespan offered no compensation or even an apology for the inconvenience.

So, that is the reason why our team celebrated the arrival of the last flyGlobespan flight on November 1, 2007. We were delighted to be rid of them so we could start the process of fixing the brand damage our association with them brought us. But, don’t just take my word for it. There are plenty of other unaffiliated sources that echo my sentiments. The Civil Aviation Authority in the UK ranks them last for delays while the BBC ran an investigative report on them recently. Furthermore, you can read passenger feedback at the SkyTrax Airline Quality site.

In closing, our team learned a very valuable lesson: choose your partners carefully! I can assure that moving forward we certainly will.

Entry Filed under: Flights, Ireland, Travel