701 The Bridge

40 Dearmans Place
Manchester
M3 5EW
SAS Sales & Service
World Business Centre 1
Newall Road
Hounslow
Middlesex
TW6 2RE
6th December 2011

RE: Cancellation of Flight SK2548 on the 6th December 2011

You will find two letters in this envelope. The second one is turgid and lifeless, full
of ominous words of foreboding such as compensation, reimbursement, and
supporting evidence. I recommend you forward it to someone you dont like.
This letter, in contrast, is a mite more light-hearted, expressing sentiments which
seemed a little out of character in juxtaposition to the mire of legal jargon in the
other. Sadly, this should still be characterised as a letter of complaint, but it
seems unnecessary to phrase it in the usual way, full of leaping flames of moral
outrage and dire marshes of immutable contempt, since writing the other letter
was so dry and dull that I cant carry on being discontented, I just cant. Just to
be legally minded for a second, anything said herein is without prejudice to the
redress sought in the second letter and should be read as a rare attempt at
good-humoured complaint that wouldnt be out of place on page 3 of the Metro.
Any reference to you hereafter is solely aimed at SAS, not you, the reader,
personally. Though if you feel something I say could apply to your personal life
then please feel free to take it on board (theres a particularly good bit about
pasta in paragraph four).

I booked a ticket for flight SK2548 to fly from Manchester to Stockholm (Arlanda)
on 6th December 2011 at 10:05am. All well and good so far. Except that I am
writing this from England and, given the above date and the length of this letter,
alarm bells should be ringing. You see, at 8 in the evening last night, the SAS
experience was seriously soured by the following text message: Your flight is
cancelled SK2548 Manchester Stockholm Arlanda Dep: 1005 For more info pls
visit https://ci.sas.mobi/fi/cancelmsg.aspx?a=n Brgds SAS. Now, there are a
number of things going on here that just arent welcome, to me or the consumer
in general. First off, cancellations alright, they happen, its a pain but we have
our rights and recourses under EC Law so its an issue whose pragmatic concerns
can be addressed. The problem is the customer service and experience thing.
SAS are not the cheapest airline around; indeed, it is only with the introduction of
your youth fares that I chose to book a flight with you in the first place. With that
comes an expectation of an elevated level of service, courtesy, quality, etc. So
when I got a text which kicked the ball rolling with Your flight is cancelled, I was
more than a little surprised. No apology, no reason; just the textual equivalent of
Nelson from The Simpsons pointing his finger and going hah-hah.
Im not expecting someone to turn up at my door with gleaming white teeth, a
barbershop quartet, and a free pizza to express the airlines sorrow at this
cancellation; however, by paying more, I expect a little more. A little more class,
a little more style, a little less conversation, a little more action please, a little
more bite and a little less bark, a little less fight and a little more spark. I would
suggest it was my bad luck, my first trip with Virgin Atlantic was no picnic, but
this is obviously your standardised cancellation text, so everyone gets the virtual
Monty Python spit in their general direction. Which is unfortunate because, if I
feel the need to complain (and though theres lawyers blood in them here veins,
I really dont enjoy complaining and confrontation), then you can bet that the
vast majority of customers are a little peeved. Considering youre competing with
companies such as BMI, BA, and SwissAir (not to mention the obvious North
England to Sweden travel provider, Thai Airways... Huh?), it seems foolish not to
give your consumers the feathery strokery treatment that is the norm nowadays;
indeed, it is as if you dont really care about your customers, or at least not as
much as other companies. Now, considering your prices arent undercutting such
companies by a vast margin, if at all, it does beg the question, if this is the
treatment I can expect for the price Im paying, why should I fly SAS?

So there I am with my text and Im annoyed because your text makes it sound
like youre doing me a favour by deigning to fly me somewhere when I pay for it.
But I get over the terse and marginally discourteous tone because I made really
good Spaghetti Bolognese and theres only so long you can remain disgruntled
with good pasta in your life. (See, told you there was useful information in here.
The secret is marjoram by the way, not even kidding.) Its not just the tone of the
text though, its the content. Surely, surely, surely, there should be an apology in
there. Probably at the start, lets be realistic about this. That applies especially to
an English number, come to think of it; texts to an English person should really
start with an apology, an invitation to queue, or an offer of tea. But I see no
apology, not at the start, nor in the middle, nor at the end. Not even if I turn over
my phone is there a bit of grovelling on the back (I have long learnt that you
should never underestimate the technical capabilities of Apples or Swedes). This
leaves me heartily inconvenienced, the company I paid to take me somewhere
isnt going to anymore, and theyre not sorry about it. Now I feel really sad
pasta only gets you so far.

What about a reason? There must be a reason. Well its not in the text, but there
is a link; surely that explains why my flight has been cancelled? Click... Wait...
Oh. (Thats disappointment.) Well, actually, I have found an apology; or rather,
a request to accept your apologies. Doesnt sound very heartfelt; more like some
arduous obligation to sound contrite met in an obsequious manner in a too little,
too late kind of way. Anyway, the apology was yesterparagraphs news, Im being
practical now and looking for a reason. What if there are serious weather issues
in Sweden? Do I need to contact family members living there? Am I going to be
able to fly over to see them at all? There must be a reason! But theres not...
Well, certainly not on that page. That page essentially says, Hi, flights been
cancelled, if we havent told you that youve got another flight, come to the
airport anyway when your cancelled flight was scheduled to leave. Wait, what?
Why would I do that?! Youve just told me the flight has been cancelled, and Ive
established there are some apologies about it, but you still want me to come to
the airport as if I were still taking the same flight? This sounds nonsensical I
assume its to place me on the next available flight, but this can be done over
the phone? Sure, I wont know about no-shows and underbooking and the like,
but I can figure out my chances of getting onto the next flight. Or can I? Because
the phone number is premium rate in the UK, Im at a friends house for dinner
(and cooking it too, ridiculous), they dont have a landline, and Im not home for
a fair while so Ive only got my mobile. Which means a relatively short phonecall
to try and explain my position could cost me 5, maybe 10. Phonecalls dont
cost that much! Well, some do, but theyre to numbers on flyers in phoneboxes
around Soho and Im pretty sure none of those numbers will sort out your flights
for you.

Now to my favourite bit: brgds. What exactly, pray tell, are brgds? An extract
from the list of possible solutions to this conundrum that I came up with:
Burgers
Brigades
Brigands
Brown gourds
Brilliant grades
British Rail Gave Daddy Syphilis
Eventually, I consider Beauregard, the Confederate general in the US Civil War.
Mucking around with the French a bit and it strikes me that this was a
monumental failure on the part of SAS to send their best regards. Oh, look!
Vowels! It really doesnt take much to type it out fully and show some level of
politeness. Were not a couple of 14 year olds texting each other about maths
homework; were two parties to a legally binding contract of carriage. Surely, you
can bring it upon yourself to use the English language properly? Ill concede that
pls is commonplace and its only my somewhat unique love of words that
causes me to take exception to that, but brgds is not in any way a standardised
abbreviation, and nor should it be. Its arbitrary and makes you tilt your head in
that way people do when theyre trying to understand things. Why reading
something at an angle gives us any kind of advantage in the process of
comprehension is beyond me, but there you have it. Even once understood, it
adds nothing by being abbreviated, but makes you wonder why a multinational
company feels the need to conserve text characters. Again, 14 year olds with
PAYG mobiles need to conserve credit, SAS is a large company that can probably
go the whole hog and write properly. Unless, and this I fear is a long shot, youre
planning to do something with the extracted letters? Perhaps youre going to
repeatedly write easter in the next text you send me? I dont know, its just a
musing... Brgds I ask you.

Well, I think youve probably got the gist of my disappointment. I could have
flown Ryanair for less and received the same kind of service. By paying more,
you expect more. Last minute cancellations, discourteous communiqus, a lack
of contrition, the absence of explanation, unrealistic demands of customers to go
to the airport anyway despite their flight having been cancelled... It all adds up
to a less than favourable impression of an airline which I thought had a proud
history of exceptional levels of service.

Im not seeking any fiscal reimbursement, thats what the other letter is for, but I
just want SAS to reconsider how they treat their customers when things go
wrong. After all, people remember the bad things that happen, not the stuff that
goes off without a hitch. Please could you pass it up that you really need to
change your cancellation text to something with an apology and use of words
that actually make sense? Furthermore, whilst it may be impracticable to
implement a system that lets consumers know exactly why their flight has gone
the way of the dodo, some explanation of how we can find out would be very
much appreciated.

Yfthflly,

Alexander Nicholas