One of the most common ads for luxury travel I have seen is the image of am Emirates Airline’s business class seats or private cabins.
Logging onto my computer today and the first page news brought me this title: “A 20-year-old business class passenger is suing Emirates for $3,300, saying the plane he flew on was ‘disgusting’ and his seat didn’t recline.” At first glance, I thought this was evidence of an entitled customer taking a business to court for something that could have been easily fixed if he asked the company to do so.
However, this is not the first time that Emirates has been sued for having business-class accommodations that look nothing like their commercials. They lost a suit in New Zealand over a similar case. While Emirates offered their customer 20,000 air miles, this is an inadequate response for someone who has had a difficult time with your service.
Good business policy makes sense that when you have given a customer something different than what they wanted, you refund the whole amount.
Emirates seems to be in the wrong on both sides here. And yes, the age of the plane in question was one issue but adequate cleaning and maintenance of the business cabin is essential if you are going to advertise the luxuriousness of your brand. As business owners, managers, and employees, we need to think about how we can serve our customers to make up for issues regarding our costs, our facilities and more.