Fastjet's cabin crew inexperienced, should learn from bars

Budget airline Fastjet recently issued impressive statistics on its operations. CEO Ed Winter reported:

"Punctuality for the month was again excellent at 99.7 % with no cancellations...."

Fastjet excels in flight operations, but its cabin crew seem to neglect how to provide an acceptable service during flights. I found myself at the receiving end of appalling service on a recent Mwanza - Dar flight.

When the trolley approached, here's what happened:

After I ordered biscuits and coffee costing Shs. 3,500 and having handed a ten thousand shilling banknote to the cabin attendant who was ahead of the trolley, she gave my back a five thousand banknote and said: "I owe you one thousand five-hundred." She also handed me the coffee and sugar except the cup and hot water.

Hardly two minutes later, the second attendant behind the carriage gave me the cup with hot water and demanded payment. I said, "you are the ones who owe me." To my surprise the first one, who minutes earlier publicly confessed to owing me Shs.1,500, could not remember I had paid up. Hardly two minutes later!

It gets better. They kept on pretending to be too busy to return my change until the plane landed an hour later. After we landed and all the passengers had disembarked I reminded her to give me my change and she claimed she had actually served me a second cup of tea and so I had no further claims.

I pointed out to her she was too young to begin suffering from dementia. And lying about having served me a second cup of tea which I had not drunk just about broke my normally composed demeanor.

I have seen better service in Butiama's bars where hardly anyone knows the difference between a boarding pass and Fastjet and where "my change" is known as i chenji yane, but where barmaids are experienced enough to return the change promptly to customers before the passage of time affects the judgement of either the barmaid or customer.

Posts related to this one:
http://madarakanyerere.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-trouble-facing-fastjet.html
http://madarakanyerere.blogspot.com/2012/12/4-reasons-why-you-should-fly-with.html