The SilkAir flight my wife and I were on from Hanoi to Singapore on May 4 was delayed by one-and-a-half hours, meaning that our scheduled time of arrival in Singapore at 6.25pm would make it difficult for us to make our flight to Penang at the scheduled departure time of 7pm.
As we had no check-in luggage, we strongly urged the ground staff in Hanoi to try and keep our original booking to Penang. However, the station manager issued us boarding tickets for the following morning, after reassuring us that the ground staff in Singapore would help us board the 7pm flight if possible.
We spoke to the cabin staff about our problems and they assured us that ground staff at Changi Airport would meet us to offer assistance so we could meet our 7pm flight to Penang.
However, when we landed at 6.15pm at Changi, no one was there to meet us on arrival.
We rushed to Transfer Counter F, where staff at the business-class section made three unsuccessful phone calls before informing us that only one business-class seat was available and that we could board if one of us flew economy class.
No apology was offered and no explanation was given as to why our urgent pleas to board our original booked flight to Penang somehow did now reach Singapore.
We were then curtly told to rush to the departure gate as it would close 10 minutes before departure.
We have the following questions:
– Why were there no SilkAir staff to help us out on arrival at Changi Airport?
– Why was our business-class seat sold off when we were keen to board the 7pm flight to Penang and SilkAir staff could see that the delayed flight would land in time for us to make our original booking?
– Why were our urgent pleas of assistance, relayed to the Hanoi station manager and in-flight lead steward, not conveyed and acted upon by ground staff at Changi Airport?
This letter was written by Ong Hean Teik.
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