Hello Jazzy,
I feel really sorry for your bad experience! But want to comment on a few points though:
My flight SN 2177 to Man cancelled by the airline???
Originally, this flight was planned to operate according to schedule (like all other flights) because the strike was only going to last until 9:00. As you probably experienced yourself, the strike lasted until 13:00, 15:00 and eventually until 16:30 when we could finally restart operations.
The big problem during the day was that we didn't know when the strike was going to end. I remember a Malaga passenger yesterday who was rebooked three times, as the new flight he was booked on got cancelled every time because the fire brigade extended the duration of the strike.
Standby on 2181 since no luggage(I needed it for the trip) denied boarding
Were you denied boarding because you lost your luggage? As far as I remember, the SN2181 (being the only MAN flight yesterday) was full so they gave you a standby boarding pass for in case there were no-shows (which was unfortunately not the case).
No drink or meal vouchers, .....
50cl bottles of water were distributed among all passengers. As we were victim as well of the strike, we couldn't offer anything more.
Lost luggage informed me they couldnt make a lost luggage file since i never left
Which is correct, your luggage was still in Brussels.
I didnt receive a toilet kit nore a hotel room
Hotel rooms were given to transit passengers. All local passengers for who we didn't have a solution on Friday evening got rebooked on a flight today.
This morning I called BRUAIR for refund. Have to fly whitin the month to the same destination so again lost money.
Your MAN ticket will either be refunded or you can change your flight to another date.
Yetserday costed me 200€ for the ticket. meals, fuel, phonecalls etc approx 100€ plus my colloqium fee in Manchester of 1000€ vanished..
Unfortunately it was a very expensive day for all parties involved... that includes both the passengers and the airlines.
Thanks strikers and thanks Bruair for making me feel flying ryanair.... There goes my preffered carrier....
Honestly, I really don't get why people are blaiming Brussels Airlines. Seen the circumstances, I think that we tried everything in our power to give all passengers a solution.
The biggest difficulty was that we didn't know until when the strike was going to last. Passengers blamed and attacked us for lack of information, but how could we know yesterday when flights were going to leave again!? Like many of my colleages in the office, I dropped my work yesterday to assist passengers at the airport. When we could restart operations at 16:30, we made a list of all remaining flights with available seats in the evening. Flight by flight, based on the departure time, we started picking passengers out of the queue, gave them a boarding pass and rushed them to security + the gate. Passengers were very grateful and appreciated how we handled the situation in the evening (as we managed to get all passengers in the air for which we had a solution). This managed to reduce the big queue and in the end, also the other passengers were assisted to get a seat on the next available flight.
I hope, dear Jazzy, that this puts the situation a little in perspective for you. I don't know how else we could have helped 15.000 stranded passengers. A lot of volunteers started to assist passengers early in the morning, and stayed until 21:00 when the last passengers with a solution for that evening had left (which was for the Birmingham flight). We were not paid for this job, nor will we be able to get time off for the 5-6 hours of overtime we all did today. We only did this job as we care about our passengers and wanted to get you in the air as soon as possible!
Regards,
OO-DWC
after insisting they made a courtesy file. I didnt receive a toilet kit nore a hotel room and had to get my wife and 6months old baby back to EBBR = 100km times for is 400km in one day...
