Yesterday evening we had to be at the Chania airport at 21:00 to get ready for our 22:55 flight to Athens. The floor attendant told us about a possible 30-minute delay, which would take us to a 23:30 departure. No problem. We had gone through worse delays.

Well, we finally took off at 0:15 and we were rather tired by then. But Olympic Airlines’ new customer service treatment was so startling that I became wide awake again. Instead of handing you the bag of peanuts while looking at you with a possible smile, the new strategy involves a very different technique: Out of nowhere – without any warning – the bag of peanuts gets tossed onto the tray of the window seat. While I was still surprised, my own bag of peanuts landed with a thud on my tray (middle seat). My son, who had the aisle seat had his placed the normal way. Mind you, she hit the tray every time!! She must have done that many times. I am beginning to believe they hire former circus performers to do this job. After this I was ready to throw my plastic cup at her instead of handing it over with a thank you, but I didn’t.

Then I remembered a conversation I had with this Greek guy just before we boarded. He informed me that Olympic Airlines was owned by the government, therefore all the employees are public employees. His words were: “They want to get fired to collect their government pension.” They way I saw it, some employees were working very hard to get fired… Most Greeks don’t think much of this airline either. Well, you know, the stigma of being a lazy government employee…

Olympic Airlines used to belong to Aristóteles Onassis until he decided to give it to his country as a present. Some institutions are better off getting privatized again. It would improve service conditions.

Anyway, we finally landed at 0:50 and then stood in line for a hotel room at the hotel service desk behind a screaming Greek woman whose flight had also been canceled. We had already heard her yelling and screaming at the airport in Chania, where she was told her connecting flight Athens – Rhodos had been canceled. We were not surprised anymore.

We were assigned a hotel, taken there by a bus – took more than sixty minutes from the airport to Piraeus – and then we stood in line at the hotel reception desk to be assigned to our rooms. Of course, the same Greek woman threw a very entertaining fit (sorry, but by this time we had no more empathy anymore as we had been through enough ourselves) in front of us. We got to our room at 2:55, were in bed by 3:00 and had to get up again at 5:10 to be picked up at 5:30 by an Olympic Airlines van for our ride to the airport.

We flew the route Athens – Thessaloniki – Frankfurt again. I slept through most of it – I can’t remember much service. It is better that way.

We not only lost two days of our vacation time but also had paid the total amount of days booked to the rental home owners and car rental agency. When I told the Greek guy I would send OA a bill, he kind of implied with his hands what they would do with my charge – toss it in the bin. Well, they are good at tossing things.

My daughter says Olympic Airlines should be called Trouble Airlines.

Please remind me not to book Olympic Airlines again.

No, thanks.

Tags: customer service, Olympic Airlines cancellation

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