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Human Errors. Yes, book with a (GDS equipped) travel agent, not on line. When I book clients, I have the seats booked, then I email them the itinerary and tell them to check that all is in order, with special reference to names, dates and times. Then they call me back and I go ahead and issue the ticket.

All clients have at least “the day” to decide and often a couple of days; true, the tax may change but it is usually only by a small amount, if at all. Even if they decide, as long as it is the same day, they can invariably cancel with impunity. This does cost, £20 a booking but can be better then a lot of grief over wrong names, dates or times. (You pay £10 with an airline and they are not so forgiving) There is a reason why, after the initial bit, things cannot be chage without the cancel and re-book and that is that it would be a total free-for -all. Also remember that the more flexibility you want, the more you pay. Interesting point – there is (though now “was”) no such thing as business class in Europe.

There is was a fully flexible, fully refundable ticket which airlines, over time, decided to give a fancy name and oput people up front with the driver – but that is all “business” class was – a fully flex/ fully refundable ticket! Remeber also that “ceapest” is not always best. It does depend on what you are trying to do and many other factors surrounding a travel “event”. There are all sorts of fares to everywhere and it may just be that a more expensive fare would be “best value” – which is not the same as “cheapest”.

2. Prices. True, but not possible. Travel supply and demand is a very pure form of supply and demand. Whereas most agents/ advertisers honestly try and give a price for a holiday, as Nick says, the seats can go and whallop, up goes the price. I have also seen it happen, with a chosen holiday on screen, whilst clients are thinking about it! In perspective, there may be 50 seats and 25 rooms at a hotel, and these are available to anyone in the UK – even the world. They go on sale at x pounds, you do not know if you are in reality client number 1 or number 48 – dither and that’s it. Taxes and charges, Yes, you are right and this is a personal bugbear as well. There are a lot of these taxes and charges that can be rolled into the price and indeed, should be.

3. Lost luggage. Quite right. Inexcusable. The technology exists to have this spot on. The Swiss can manage it…

4. Customer Care. See what Nick says. Been there as well and it is not funny being on the receiving end. People leave their brain cells, sometimes, at home when going to an airport. A sort of red mist decends when they enter an airport terminal, the slightest thing and that’s it, bedlam. No tolerance. An aeroplane is quite a complex bit of kit to transport 200 odd souls 32,000 feet above the earth, which is not the normal place for a human soul to be. The thing has to 110% correct. Fine, so something goes wrong, what do people suggest – an engineer saying “Oh! Just Bodge it, we can’t keep people waiting” Sometimes, engineers (and so everyone else) just do not know how long it will take to fix and/ or what else may be unearthed, so, better learn some tolerance and better safe than sorry, eh?

5. Email Support. Yup, actually I do not know too many travel outfits that use premium rate numbers (Easyjet and RyanAir do – but what do you expect for a few Euro a pop) Many use freephones. Many do have email but the issue here is cost given that a) people want to pay as little as possible and so b) don’t expect much in return. If, of course, you book yourself in business class, they will offer you any support you like, send a car round to take you to the airport, give you a quiet lounge, free drinks and generally bend over backwards. So, as with anything else in life, you get what you pay for.

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Also some notes on the rebuttal. If prices vary by the minute, maybe it’s not a special you can advertise like that. Find another way of conveying the idea of a limited time deal. The lowest price that will be good for only some seconds, doesn’t seems an honest advertisement for anyone. Also I think the complaint is not about that, but about the omission of taxes and airport charges that make tickets look a lot cheaper than they are.

For the delays, I think it is formation that is missing. Airline personnel should be there to help people and convey information in a caring way. Also they should manage expectation so people don’t come back angry when the schedule changes again. They probably don’t know most of the time how to do that, and after being yelled at for some time they retreat. This leads to the fact that the only thing people value in air travel, is the speed. The fact that almost everybody try to differentiate on price and that people often buy the cheapest is also responsible for the current state.

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When travel agents put a price in the window it is the price the holiday is on sale for at that time, meaning you can go away for that price. However prices on the system change by minutes, for example we had a customer who came in about a £199 Malta deal that we place in the window less than 1 hour before, when he came in the price was £179 if he booked then, but he want to get his wife, who was in a shop 2 doors down and when he came back a few minutes later the price was £249! So yes the prices really do change in the time it takes an agent to write out the card or even for the display to change on the internet.

As to the airport and lack of information having been the person handing out the information I can tell you it just is not there. So I am facing 180 people all asking my every few minutes what is going on. I am told it a minor fault (something the engineers have told control) and will be fixed in 1 hour, I pass that information on; in terms of I say there is a small technical delay. However the engineers fix the electrical fault to find it blows something else out, now they have another problem but they do not know what, and before you know it something that was going to be fixed in 1 hour takes 6. All the time we were getting told to pass on to customers that it will be a couple more hours. Then if fixed so it can leave right, well no.. now the control has to book take off landing slots again, so in the end something they thought would delay the plane 1 hour delays it 8.

So the staff in control or on the ground are not likely to know anymore than you do. Hence why after being shouted at nonstop for 2 hours they go into a back room. I can say from experience it can be very scary to face 25 people who are cross and upset, never mind 250. If you want to put it another way, next time your car has a fault and you put in a garage try ringing up every 10 minutes asking whats wrong and when it will be fixed.

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