Last week I recounted an exchange I had with a vigilante Korean Air lounge attendant that attempted to downgrade me from paid business class to coach on her own accord despite substantial evidence I bought the correct ticket. Many commenters weighed in on what I should do, but what should Korean Air do to resolve this customer service matter?
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What Happened
Upon checking in to the Korean Air lounge at New York’s JFK International airport, I was told that my family had not paid enough for our tickets and that we should actually be in coach, not business class. We were not interested in a downgrade and were not treated respectfully. To recap, here is the evidence supplied over a 120-minute period while the lounge agent degraded us and our intelligence.
- Printed boarding cards for the journey JFK-ICN in business class
- KoreanAir.com correctly showed our tickets with no issues in the fare class we demonstrated
- Hotwire.com correctly showed the itinerary as well
- Receipt from Korean Air following a schedule adjustment and subsequent route change
- Original receipt from June 2018 from Hotwire.com
- Korean Air phone agent confirming the information
- The lounge agent’s own computer system which showed no issue with the ticket
- Delta’s ticketing agent (primary domestic feed flight) which showed the itinerary as we claimed
- Hotwire.com phone support confirming the same
- Korean Air phone agent via transfer from Hotwire.com phone agent
- Korean Air phone agent called independently from Hotwire
It was only at the last point that the agent finally printed our onward ticket from ICN-DPS with a non-apology and general avoidance.
Korean Air Has Been In Touch… Sort Of
Before I even considered writing a post, I tried to reach out to Korean Air outside of the JFK office to explain the events and determine if there as something else that caused the events for which I (and all of the other systems and agents) were unaware. I wanted to give the ultimate benefit of the doubt before bringing the issue to my readers to ensure I had all of the information, as accurately told as within my control.
I first tried Korean Air’s Twitter account. Then Twitter again after a few days. Then their facebook account. Then an email to customer support before the post went live (this was about 5-6 days in total). Despite all of this, I had heard nothing at all from Korean Air. Not a peep. I finally called into reservations and just complained there. I find it appalling that Korean Air couldn’t rummage up a response via ANY of those methods over nearly a week.
I was asked to write another email, this time to engsupervisor@koreanair.com (English reservations call center supervisor) where I outlined everything. As the post was live, I included a tracked link.
I finally received a response to my email back, only to say that they would pass it on because it was not their department. Then another from the same (as they had found my original email) reiterating the same message but adding that it was because the fare was an error (IT WASN’T) causing confusion for the agent (IT DIDN’T). I reject these half-apologies.
I did get a partial genuine apology from the station manager of JFK stating that they would further investigate and conduct recurrent training. In my mind, recurrent training for this event should have consisted of scanning a boarding pass and permitting access to the lounge, but who knows what that means.
They all stated that they would continue an investigation into the matter for 3-4 weeks.
What Is A Fair Remedy?
The half-apologies do more harm than good in my opinion. It’s like someone saying, “That’s really good for a person like you” and has the opposite effect of its intended goal. I gave them plenty of opportunities to simply respond back with something more genuine and their garbage social media teams and even customer service email response is evident that customer service is not terribly important to them.
Some have suggested that I am entitled to something for my mistreatment at the lounge. I am not sure that’s the case. In the end, I flew my flight in the cabin I purchased as intended. And while I might have been treated like trash and had to prove with nearly a dozen pieces of evidence that the truth I stated (and they saw on their screen) was the truth, what’s a fair remedy for this?
- Do they owe me miles for my trouble?
- A voucher for being treated like a thief when I’d done nothing wrong?
- A full apology instead of a half apology?
- Nothing – that’s just the way it goes sometimes.
I’m not looking for a handout from Korean Air. As one commenter mentioned last week, other customers (in her case an older black single female) have to prove they are in the cabin they have booked more often than not. But it’s just not settled with me. It feels like whether I am proactively making a route change due to their schedule change, proving my ticket is valid, or following up with them regarding their own service incident – it’s always my burden to make the situation right.
>Read More: Vigilante Korean Air Lounge Agent Attempts to Downgrade Paid Business Ticket Degrades Customer
I’m not happy leaving it as it is, but I ask you – what is fair? What would make it right for you?
Talk to any white English teacher on Korea. They are not treated as part of the culture. The kids don’t listen to them, the school doesn’t back them. You are never accepted as part of their system. They tolerate you. So that pretty much sums the racist attitudes of koreans.
I think you should ask for free supply of bibimbap for a year.
So if they would had offer you something I return ; you would have not shared this with your readers ? What’s the point of your blog ?
Flyer – No, that’s not what I am saying. I would have described the issue at hand and how they resolved it. I don’t want to paint anyone in a bad light that is undeserving. If a waiter brings the wrong food to my table and I say nothing to the waiter but go and tell all my friends about how I received the wrong food and was improperly charged, I didn’t really give the restaurant an opportunity to recover from a simple mistake. My comments to my friends would have been unfair to the restaurant and waiter. In this case, the issue was so outlandish that I wanted to give the airline ample opportunity to respond in an intelligent way that acknowledged the issue, my position, and how they had treated my family. But after giving them multiple opportunities to do so (and failing to receive any at the time of publication), I went ahead with the post.
As I also outlined in my post, I am not looking for a handout, but a half-hearted apology didn’t cut it. Given the work that I have put in just for them to half-acknowledge what took place, I am considering what it would take for me to book with the airline again. Maybe that’s a more genuine apology. Maybe that’s miles or some sort of other credit. Maybe there is nothing that they could do to change my mind and win my business back again – it’s an open question in my mind and I am curious what the readers might have to contribute. Many readers also wanted an update, so this serves as that.
The point of the blog is to share my experiences traveling the world with like-minded individuals. If it’s not for you, I understand and wish you luck finding the right blog to serve your needs.
There is a big difference between Koreans in Korea and Koreans in the USA. I will admit Korean society is pretty close-minded (as are Indians in India, the Swiss in Switzerland, Italians in Italy, etc.) but outside of Korea they are not quite as bad as you state.
What an ignorant and generalized comment about a country whatever that country it may be
No jan. No generalization. You should try bibimbap. You will like it.
Wow. 1) I hope this get picked up by national outlets and 2) you can vote with your wallet.
While I agree this was pretty bad, I don’t think the national media are going to care a bunch about a family getting a hard time trying to enter a business class lounge. And Kyle kind of did vote with his wallet – he took advantage of hugely discounted business class tickets.
Aztec, I will vote with my wallet the next time such a fare arises. On this occasion, I wasn’t aware of the trouble I would have in advance (and shouldn’t have encountered regardless of the price paid) so it wasn’t as though I had made a choice due to price despite my bad experience with them, previous experiences had been rather good.
Of note, American Airlines has business class fares as low as $2100 from LAX to Bangkok right now (per Lucky) so again, I reiterate that my fare was not unconscionably low and a clear mistake. It was advantageous pricing that I chose to book and shouldn’t have encountered this issue.
Agreed, your treatment was abhorrent. And, frankly, I don’t think this was a mistake fare either. All I was trying to say is that Korean Air probably wouldn’t care that much if people only ‘voted with their wallets’ on hugely discounted fares.
The correct response was a full and immediate apology.
Since that did not happen, Heather Cho should throw nuts at the lounge agent and the customer service agents responsible for the botched followup.
Keep emailing until you get a proper response. At a minimum a genuine apology, and given the fumbling of the complaint handling it would be to their advantage to offer some miles for goodwill
I truly feel a full apology is not enough. If in fact it took as long as you say to get through this process, while your family and you stood there waiting to enter somewhere you were entitled to enter, this was a rather egregious error on the part of Korean Air. Regardless of any racial undertones or whatever, making a paying customer (customers!) wait while jumping through hoops to prove you are in business class as your boarding pass and reservation state, is horrible customer service and deserves compensation. I would expect they would bend over backwards to do so in light of your social media presence, but they should do it for anyone they treat in such a terrible fashion.
Korean air does not get respect in Korea with all the family shitstorm that has been happening starting from the nut case (pun intended). The CEO’s daughters and wife are psychopaths with anger issues that are getting lots of negative attention in the Korean social media.
Due to this you will find numerous flights within Korea as well as internally flights that are cheaper than competition. I personally have boycotted Korean air even though they had a reputation of good service, clean planes and good food. My conscience does not allow sending money to a corrupt family that have no moral backbone.
BTW, there is a reason for Korean for being closed as a society (not personally). If you have read any history on the peninsula, the Korean people have had a tough time with the Chinese, Japanese, Russian and US. You might have heard stories from the 70s onwards of US army personnel raping young school girls and then being let go free in the US due to the biased laws that were signed after the Korean war. Korean are ever grateful for the US of providing the freedom, but its the shit that happened afterwards that makes the people weary of foreigners. Read up and stop mentioning bibimbap… just so racist.
They would have done this to anyone…. why do people bring up the race card???
This happened to me one time and I kept going and walking the person’s dog. After awhile the fog lost substantial weight. And they couldn’t cook him into a stew. Just saying
Kyle, you should really understand they live, feel and behave in completely different reality. I mean something which is clear as a day to any Westerner is not understood the same way by a Korean. Their society and they way they live and interact are completely different.
I’m used to fly with Korean between Moscow and Honolulu back in 2006-2012 almost every year. Well… I can say it was pretty bad experience overall (I mean those 747 operating ICN-HNL-ICL with the most torturous slippery slope seats plus terrible ICN lounges). Still I stuck with them because I was booking return award tickets from Europe to Honolulu for 80,000 miles round trip in business (thanks to CSA). There were a lot of kinks in my experience (like yours) that I can attribute these to cultural differences. Once, they canceled one of the 2 daily direct flights between ICN and HNL. I was affected on both ends as both my flights got canceled. They did not rebook me. There were zero communication from their side. There was zero award availability on other flights +/- 2 weeks. CSA agents were really nice and caring and their supervisor almost became a good friend of mine, as she called me like twice a week. They were sending requests to KE asking to open space and reaccommodate me. Never worked. Then I got in touch with KE office in Moscow, they did nothing except sending requests to Seoul. Never worked. You can’t imagine my frustration. It was exhausting with the dozens of phone calls all in vain and growing uncertainty. In the end I gave up and booked a revenue ticket with BA and AA.
After the vacation I was still angry as hell at Korean and wanted revenge (hah). They were unbearable to deal with in modern ways, so I wrote a 3 page letter in English (then paid to get it translated to Korean) and DHL-ed it to KE office in Moscow, KE head office in Korea and SkyTeam office in NL. Only after someone in Seoul read my letter I was contacted by their head in Russia with apologies. They offered me to open up space on any flights between Moscow and Honolulu, upgraded me to First on legs between ICN and HNL and paid some cash as compensation (which I can’t disclose). Then 5 months later I went to check myself in for my flight to ICN and to HNL (flying that compensation award ticket). Oh boy If I knew upfront I was in for the most awkward experience in my life. The head of Korean in Russia (a Korean man 20 years older than me) was waiting at a counter to “greet” me. He bowed not less than 10 times (getting pretty low) in a sign of apology. That was so embarrassing, people around just kept giving me looks. Then he personally brought me to a lounge, then I met him at boarding for another session of embarrassing bowing. First class lounge attendant @ICN was aware of me coming, so while not speaking a world in English and thus not able to apologise verbally she just bowed.
I worked for Korean Air. I can assure you because of your ethnicity you’ve been treated far worse and no resolution will be offered They are racist and very discriminatory even to their own employees. Your only hope is to make a complaint to Delta since they are in a joint venture. part of my job was to respond to Delta regarding these type of things but there really wasn’t much I could do but tell them it is how it is.
If you want to get their attention, share your story publicly on Twitter and engage others to share with hashtags like #dumpkoreanair and #flyasiana. I think that would wake them up.
I’m not sure anything short of #NutGate2:BaggedAgain would wake up their social team. Defibrillators, smelling salts and a full brass band wouldn’t even get their attention at this point.
Initially, a complete and sincere apology would have been enough. Now with the fact that you’ve been ignored multiple times through multiple channels of communication, you should be due some substantial compensation. Korean has screwed up repeatedly at this point. The onus is on them to make it completely right.
Fair point.
As you imply, I think the best resolution here is a full apology and assurance that re-training/employee discipline has happened to ensure that it does not happen again. Some compensation in miles would be nice, but I do think the main thing you’re looking for is the apology, training and discipline of employee.
I get that Lounge employees have to legitimately turn away a lot of people who try to gain wrongly gain access, but these sorts of stories where they turn away people who clearly DO have access really gets my blood boil. An analogous situation happened with my mother who was flying from YEG-YVR-HKG-SIN on CX Business but with a Westjet connector on YEG-YVR. Her boarding pass was printed on Westjet card and the lounge agent in HKG didn’t want to let her in despite my mother having a boarding pass with a CX business class seat. After half an hour of making my mom wait, she was eventually allowed in, but in addition to the wait her luggage was not retagged as priority in HKG as it was supposed to. I wrote a complaint letter to CX and they did apologize and gave a $50 voucher.
Vigilantes are everywhere!
I fly Korean Air to ICN a lot from DFW . I have always been treated with the utmost respect. When I screwed up and made 2 sky pass accounts, They went above and beyond to help me . I am not sure as to what all transpired on your trip , I venture to say that we got one side of the story . I buy through Expedia or Orbitz . I have never had any problems with my tickets whatsoever . That is quite a conundrum you find yourself in . My experience in DFW and Manilla is that the workers aka agents and ground staff are not employed by Korean Air , they are subcontracted to them because the number of flights do nut support a full time staff . I would look into who actually employs the agent and ream them a new one
Yes. I second this. I had a problem with my skypass account and needed to make some changes and book a ticket in first class at short notice and the agent went above and beyond. But the agent was Indonesian or Malaysian. Not sure if they have a call center there or she was working in Korea.
Personally, keep updating their response or lack of it on the blog. The tide of negative publicity will effect them more than any belated apology.
They essentially stole 2 hours of your life away because of how their agent treated you. Given how they have responded at this point I think something in the order of a $500 to $1000 voucher would be appropriate. Or a bundle of miles if you prefer those. I also think you are owed a sincere apology but it seems like they just are not interested.
I suspect at this point if anything is going to happen your either going to need a.) to reach someone senior at Korean who would actually care (like the one commenter did above when he had his letter translated and sent to Seoul) or b.) to draw a lot more attention to this (like might happen if other major travel blogs picked up and ran with the story.) Best of luck! Your experience certainly makes me question if I would want to give Korean my buisness if I had other alternatives.
How much did you pay for JFK ICN business seat?
About $2k per adult, $1500 for our child. Cheaper than normal full freight from an airport near us to a destination we wanted to visit but not unbelievably low. This isn’t $400 in first class from Yangon, or Hong Kong Airlines business class for $600 from the west coast. In fact, LAX-BKK this week is as low as $2100 on American – not a mistake, just competitive.
Don’t let this slide: the Cerberus-like agent needs to get her comeuppance , if only for the sake of her future victims. I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than an apology, a generous points allocation and an assurance that the agent will receive appropriate counseling.
It was a horrible customer service experience. We feel for you, we really do. Most of the people reading this post could offer up some of their own equally-awful (worse?) experiences. Andy there’s quite a lynching mob crying out for justice. Were you treated badly – yes, of course. Does the airline owe you a real apology from someone in a position to give it – undoubtedly. Does the agent in question need some re-training and, perhaps, cultural sensitivity lessons – you bet (“comeuppance” is a bit strong though and hints at a level of retribution that’s probably inappropriate for the situation).
But ask yourself whether it’s worth your time, energy, and emotional well-being to continue to pursue this (and get more upset every time you think about) when, in all likelihood, any remedy is really going to make you feel better?