24 Jun |
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Which is why my experience at Frankfurt airport last month came as such a pleasant surprise. Travelling as a guest of Lufthansa to welcome their new A380 'superjumbo', I enjoyed the rare chance to sit up at the sharp end of the plane. As you'd expect; great food, efficient service and a very comfortable flight. Surprised that they haven't gone for completely lie-flat beds in business class, but I'm sure there's a reason. Anyway, so we land in Frankfurt and I discover that some light-fingered baggage handler (most likely in Johannesburg) has snapped off a zip on my suitcase and rifled through the case. One thing I am meticulous about is never having valuables in my hold luggage, so luckily they scored precisely zero. But there was still the matter of the broken suitcase. So off I go to Lufthansa's baggage counter to report the damage. "No problem," says the super-friendly (even at 5.45am) clerk. "Just take this voucher to the luggage repair shop at carousel 11 and they'll fix it for you on the spot." I beg your pardon? Repair shop? In the airport? On the spot? Surely not... But it's true! It exists! In the airport! Well, all true, except for the part about repair. Turns out they couldn't fix the case on the spot, so they offered to either send it away to be fixed, or replace it on the spot from their stock of brand-new suitcases kept on hand just in case. I went for the latter and walked out of Frankfurt a smiling, not irate, passenger. Now that's what I call service... Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites            |