Last weekend, I flew GoAir from Goa to Mumbai after a quick stay at the W Goa, and I tried some of GoAir’s ancillary services as well this time around after my bad experiences with GoAir earlier. For INR 400, GoAir promised to let me get in front of the check-in queue and priority check my bag in, and bring it out first on the other end. Except, they forgot conveniently this was Goa airport they were trying to sell me the service at.
I paid the 400 INR to GoAir at the time of check-in, and conveniently went to the airport, where all the other airlines had set up counters to enable priority check-in. Indigo, yes. SpiceJet, yes. Air India, Vistara, Jet Airways, of course, yes! But no such counter for GoAir.
So I asked a couple of porters who were with GoAir, and they asked me just to stand in the queue. The GoBusiness counter, not to be confused with the Priority counter (it did not expressly say so), was being used to weigh at least 20 bags, so it was already out of service for priority customers who may have paid via GoBusiness or Priority service for an express service.
GoAir at Goa
On asking the person across the counter, he told me that I had to bring a print of the itinerary, which should have had shown Priority services booked, and then looked for someone who was GoAir staff, and then this person would have brought me in the front of the queue, and they could have then delivered the service. No written instructions anywhere of such sort, so clearly he was just cooking it up. By his own admission, even if I admitted to everything he said was true, then, the person who was supposed to be driving priority pax to the front of the queue was not in his position because he was taking a personal phone call for over 5 minutes on duty.
Apparently, the onus is not on the airline to have a counter open or someone wait to redirect Priority passengers to the Priority queue. The onus is on the passenger to first pay up, and then be troubled with finding someone at the GoAir counter (as if intuitively), and then get priority service.
Furthermore, talking to the duty manager yielded no result as well, because she wanted me to give this feedback to the corporate HO rather than taking it down herself and driving it forward. Maybe it was the Goa state of mind.
Bottomline
As one of the lowest in the pack, but yet one of the oldest, GoAir benefits from having the privilege of running a lot of trunk routes. But if customer service is lacking, I wonder how long would they be able to keep fares low and still expand.
Have you had any such experiences with GoAir where they haven’t delivered the goods?
I had a different experience.
I was traveling from Goa to Del in gobusiness with my family, I just cut the que and went in front of the line and asked for GoBusiness check-in and she completed her current check-in and called me next.
My experience was not bad, I guess some time it’s good to ask on counter then people around them as they are not aware.
@Ankush, all I am saying is, when an airline provides a service, they are responsible for executing it flawlessly, especially when they are charging extra for it. Not my lookout to put them in their place to do their job.
@Ajay, That’s true but still it never harms anyone to ask, even big carriers like ME3 miss the mark sometime even in F but if you ask for services you get it.
They sold me their “business” once. I had to change my ticket to this airline as all my friends were Travelling on this and forced me. (Else you know me). Ironically this was Goa too. Rubbish it was. Rickety non Ac busses. Only difference was that the middle seat was kept empty. and they served a veg biryani in the deal. Nothing else changed. They just need to pack up and go..