Adria Airways’ Response To My Bad Flight Explains Everything

A native Slovenian here, living abroad for a very long time. I visit family in LJU quite often and thus, I do fly Adria reasonably frequently. Flying Adria always had an emotional connection with my home town and for that reason I was forgiving on a number of fronts when encountering their service shortfalls. I won't spend too much effort commenting on Adria’s hard product; it's obviously tired and outdated. As to the business class product, it's undeserving of that name which unfortunately is intra-European standard. In addition, the regional jets as mostly flown by Adria with configuration of 2-2 abreast shouldn't be allowed to call that product business class. I have noticed however in the recent years that, in the business class section, the neighbouring seat is being regularly blocked off as a way of compensating for the substandard seat size. Quality of inflight meals in business class leaves a lot to be desired but as I always connect onto Adria flights from a long-haul intercontinental flight, I am not hungry and without expectation decline inflight service. In relation to the cabin crew’s rudeness as it has been commented on, I'd like to offer my personal perspective, which is just that, my personal take and my personal experience, which may not be everybody's view and experience. Whilst I appreciate one writer's comment that Adria and Slovenia should not be used in the same sentence, I respectfully disagree. Irrespective of who owns the airline nowadays, and where it flies to or from, it is crewed by Slovenians and that justifyingly makes it Slovenian as far as the customer is concerned. For those who know Slovenians, as I do, they are direct in the way they express themselves, could be seen as abrupt even, but I would stop short of labelling them rude as a general rule. The Slovenian way is not that of tact and diplomacy, which is what can be detected in the response from Adria's customer relations person. Do I endorse it? But of course not, I just happen to understand where they are with their thinking. I.e. they are stating facts, those being that not all reviews are bad, and that they don't intentionally fly with broken seats, and that some people are happy with their service, etc. All true but contextually inappropriate as it doesn't represent a client focused style of communication, which I am accustomed to receiving from other carriers I fly with. I must say though, not in defence of Adria, it's not uniformed standard to be customer focused even amongst some of the best known world carriers, which is again a reflection of their corporate standard, combined with the national cultural norms or traditions which comes out in the communication style. I have flown countless of airlines in my time and only use but a handful now who have consistently proved their quality of service and its sustainability of standard, not only measured by the hard product offering. So given that I fly only but a few carriers nowadays selected on the basis of their superior soft product in-flight, on the ground and over the phone, why do I still fly Adria, you may ask? The answer is very simple - I mostly have no choice if I want to fly directly into LJU, and directly I want to fly given that it takes me some 24 hours flying time to get to Europe from the place where I live. In summary, by the time I get onto Adria flight, I am so tired from travelling that I actually don't care what I get from them, so long as they get me to my family in LJU safely and (hopefully) on time. But if asked if there is something I would change at Adria, my answer would be those safety announcements which are completely illegible in all languages the crew make them in, including the native Slovenian! God help those who in the event of emergency relied on understanding those safety instructions. There simply is no logical reason why this should be so, if the crew took some pride in the work they do by putting a little effort into making the announcements purposeful as opposed to just ticking the safety compliance box.

If only you would share the negative tweet of someone who is not an over-complainer. Dragan's negative comments are certainly not limited to JP or LJU, he also complains about and to all the other non-aviation related companies that didn't reach his 'standards' and you have plenty of other tweets and comments to choose from that might have more merit, because finding his was a super easy job.

Ben, your post became news in Slovenia (https://siol.net/novice/slovenija/bloger-si-je-zelel-da-bi-bilo-poleta-z-adrio-cim-prej-konec-video-496027) and even got airtime on TV. When it comes to Adria's response it shows classic bamboozling tactics that you can regularly experience in service industries across Slovenia. For example, the article above says that the stewardess greeted you in Slovenian and you probably just didn't understand her (why even speak Slovenian on international flights?) and that the seat was broken, but they already ordered and were waiting for new ones when this occurred (what does that have to do with customers not being able to sit?). It's all about saving face and concocting some narrative that tries to keep the brand neutral and portray customers as being overly negative or rigid to their proposed "solutions". You bought the ticket and if they don't deliver what they sell (and even have foresight to know it!) they should go head over heels to accommodate you in a different way or comp you. End of story. Most Slovenians don't even use Adria because of their exorbitant pricing and recent horror stories of canceling flights, stranding passengers or diverting flights. I'd guess that a major part of their customer base is government officials traveling to Brussels or business customers who can't spare time to depart from Zagreb, Venice or Graz (which are all within two hour drive radius from Ljubljana airport).

As a Slovenian with over 150 flights with Adria I am saddened and ashamed by your experience - especially the response from JP is so amateur and unprofessional that it makes me want to vomit. As mentioned in the comments before me, Adria Airways used to be a nice regional airline with realiable service, but a hard time to be profitable. Once it was sold to the german 4K Invest it all went downhill fast. A bunch of shady business practices, delays, cancellations, combining different flights, not enough crew... I once wrote a complain in March after I missed my business meetings because of their cancellation and impossible rebooking route which forced me to miss my connection and I have received a reply in November. After that I have given up on them and only use them in rare cases, otherwise I use other airlines from LJU or drive to TRS/VCE. I really hope they can get their act together, because the staff has always been nice and professional, but I do not have a lot of faith in the new managment. I do hope they prove me wrong and wish them all the best.

Hello Clark, you managed to write a really witty comment. And mixed AA and Slovenia once again. Might I ask where you're from? Because if you're from anywhere near by, I'd like to invite you to Slovenia to have a beer with me. Maybe, I might be successful in convincing you that Slovenia is not a 3rd class country after all. Cheers mate!