Singapore Strait

I thought I’d add a few photos taken in Singapore including the silver ball photo missed in the original post.

We’re now in Barcelona and I’m thinking about the long day from Singapore to Barcelona, though it won’t be the longest flight in our whole trip, and have made a couple of observations of customer service along the way. I’ve been in that business since starting work 50 whole years ago as a telephone exchange operator aged almost 17, have been in PA/secretarial roles and various training/teaching of adult roles along the way. I think you need to be polite and friendly but not servile and it disturbed me in Singapore to see men and women cleaners and other similar roles almost bowing when they were given a polite thank you.

On the other hand, in a public facing role in airports such as check-in, managing queues, checking boarding passes and passports on boarding, those people need to be on their guard for dodgy people (not us of course) but can still be polite. A sneering nod of the head or flick of the hand when indicating to come forward doesn’t do it for me, nor a snapped answer and virtual push off.

Flight crews so far have varied too. The Qantas crews Auckland/Sydney and Sydney/Singapore were ‘normal’ – efficient but pleasant, friendly, had a few laughs and nothing seemed to be a bother. Emirates on the other hand were there just to pick up their pay; they looked bored, weren’t very visible, barely smiled, didn’t interact with the passengers much at all. A real contrast and Emirates had a good reputation but now the cost cutting shows too with no amenity packs for night flights, no printed menus (first world problem of course), snacks served were ‘interesting’ – a choice of a hot pre-packaged bread roll filled with a cheese or egg mix, plus water and a dryish sweet small cupcake. Meals varied from fairly unappetising to not too bad.

But back to customer service and you definitely do get some gems such as the lovely Filipina lady at the boarding gate in Dubai, short and quite round (like some of us are), ‘Good morning’ greeting with a happy smile, checked the boarding pass and passport and sent us on our way with a ‘have a nice flight’. Great example to others.Read more