I’m currently on a review trip to Oman. In a previous installment, I talked about my disappointing Oman Air business class flight from Muscat to Frankfurt, which was the polar opposite of my Oman Air business class flight from Milan to Muscat the night before. What I haven’t addressed in detail yet is the service onboard, which was the worst I’ve had in business class in a long time.
I had a lackluster flight attendant on Oman Air
There was one flight attendant serving me the entire time on the 7hr40min flight from Muscat to Frankfurt. Let me start by saying that I’m sure she’s a nice person, and she wasn’t rude in any way. However, the level of service she provided made me yearn for flying a US airline, which is saying something. For what it’s worth, the cabin was just over half full, so it’s not like the crew was overworked and needing to hustle.
On a good day, Oman Air offers great inflight service. The airline markets its business class product as offering an “unmatched level of personalized attention.” I’ll let y’all be the judge as to whether that was offered on this flight.
To start, this flight attendant just didn’t communicate with words. For example, about 10 minutes after takeoff, she came to my seat holding a paper and pen, and just stood there looking at me:
“Hi… are you taking meal orders?”
“Yes.”
“Could I have the Arabic mezze, please?”
“Yes, one left.”
Okay, then. Next, she brought me some nuts, and then continued to stand there:
“Hi, are you taking drink orders, or…?”
“Yes.”
Good thing I have an infant, so I’m good at figuring out what people are asking for without talking. 😉
She would even ask me questions without speaking. For example, when I was done with my appetizer, she didn’t ask if I was finished with words, but rather she made a hand motion to ask if I was finished (you know, like holding your hand up and then moving it to the side as if you’re cutting something).
It was also clear she just didn’t follow Oman Air’s service procedure. While minor, here’s a concrete example. On every Oman Air business class flight I’ve taken, the crew pours wine and champagne at the seat, first bringing out a glass, then presenting the bottle, and then pouring. She just brought the glass out from the galley already filled.
More significantly, if I didn’t explicitly ask for something, it wasn’t offered. Admittedly not all flight attendants have the same attention to detail and are good at anticipating the needs of passengers, but we’re talking about very simple things. An empty glass? She’d either leave it there or just take it, without asking if I wanted anything else. I also had to specifically ask for cutlery that was needed for particular dishes.
Here’s an example — when she brought me dessert, there were two empty glasses, a soup spoon, and a knife, sitting on my tray. She simply placed the cheesecake on the table next to them. Did she ask if I want anything to drink, remove my glasses, or bring me a fork? Nope!
This service level was constant throughout the flight. It was such a contrast to my flight the night before, where the crew was fabulous. They were proactive with offering drinks, they’d replace cutlery when needed, and they’d communicate in ways you’d expect in business class, like taking meal orders by asking “have you had a chance to look over the menu?”
After the meal, the service transitioned from sloppy to non-existent. In fairness, the crew responded to call buttons, but they otherwise didn’t check if anyone ever wanted anything.
Apparently the airline offers a pre-landing snack on demand, but you would never know that, because they never mentioned the availability of this. This was the sloppiest and most disinterested business class service I’ve had on a long haul flight in… I don’t know how long.
Let me of course acknowledge there are bigger problems in the world, but I write about premium airline products, and airlines make certain claims about the levels of service they offer. So I try to judge those experiences as fairly as I can, and service on this flight fell way short of my expectations.
I brought this to the attention of the cabin manager
About 45 minutes before landing, the crew started preparing the cabin for landing. It was a rare treat to see the crew pass through the cabin without a call button having been pushed. I saw the cabin manager walk by, so I stopped him for a moment.
That conversation started with something like this:
“Hi, I’m just curious, is there no pre-landing snack on this flight?”
“Yes there is a small snack, but it has to be requested.”
“Is that the policy that it’s not offered? I find it strange, I just flew from Milan to Muscat on a 5.5 hour overnight flight, and was proactively offered a pre-landing snack. This flight is two hours longer and a daytime flight, and I’m not offered anything.”
“I’m sorry, that’s the policy.”
“How would I even know it can be requested? It’s not on the menu, and the flight attendant didn’t mention this was even an option.”
Since I had the cabin manager’s attention, at this point I did something I’ve never done before — I figured I’d share some feedback about the negative experience I had with him directly. OMAAT readers often tell me I’m too passive and don’t stand up for myself, so I figured this would be a good thing to test out.
After all, on Gulf carriers cabin managers are actually in charge of the crew, and have some power, so it seemed only fair for him to be aware of the issues, rather than him being caught off guard if I complained after the fact.
I said something along the lines of the following:
“I just want you to be aware that the service on this flight has been very poor, and the flight attendant serving me hasn’t been professional. I love Oman Air and have flown with the airline many times, but this is the worst service I’ve had on the airline.”
I went on to provide examples of the service, and to contrast that to the service I’ve had on past Oman Air flights. He seemed borderline defensive, and I’m not sure my feedback was actually registering with him. I don’t like to badger people, especially when I realize a conversation isn’t going anywhere, and therefore isn’t really constructive. I know when to cut my losses.
I certainly know on some other Gulf carriers, they’d thank you for the feedback and document what happened, while he seemed to mostly be making excuses for what happened.
For what it’s worth, I believe he was an Omani gentlemen, and he didn’t seem particularly customer focused either. He never came through the cabin to greet passengers. As a point of contrast, I had an excellent Filipino cabin manager on the overnight flight, and she came by to introduce herself to each passenger during boarding, and to let them know that she was at their service.
The flight attendant confronted me about my feedback
A few minutes later, the flight attendant who had been “serving” my section approached me:
“I heard you had some problems with my service.”
Oh, this is about to get awkward. Look, I hate the term “gaslighting,” because I think people overuse it to play the victim card. But I think what happened over the next few minutes was basically the definition of it.
I’m not kidding when I say that I stopped for a moment after this interaction and questioned whether I was just losing my mind, and if I was in fact offered amazing service the whole flight, but was just unable to appreciate it.
I shared similar feedback to what I wrote above. I was hoping her response would be “oh, I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” or “I’m having a bad day, I’m sorry,” or “thank you for your feedback, I’ll use it to improve in the future.” Instead I got… mostly the opposite, and one of us must have been hallucinating, because we had totally different impressions of reality. Where do we even begin?
- “I feel really bad, because I serve from the heart and always smile, and want my guests to be happy”
- “I constantly go through the cabin to see what my guests want, and I always offer you whatever you want, every time you ask for something I get it for you”
- “The reason I don’t bring the bottle to the seat is because the captain said maybe there is some turbulence”
- “All my passengers enjoy my service and have good flight”
- “When you were sleeping I raised the partition for you so you could rest”
- “You are so nice and every time we interact, you say thank you, I even tell the crew in the galley how 12K is so nice and he always appreciate what I do and say thank you”
- “Please, I don’t want you to leave unhappy, maybe we fly together again”
- “I usually work first class, and good service is important to me”
Honestly, for a moment I questioned my sanity. Was I losing it? But everything she said was somewhere between wishful thinking and a downright lie. If anything, her response makes me feel better about sharing this feedback publicly. Because it’s not “oh, I’m sorry, today wasn’t a good day for me.” Rather it was “my service is amazing, what’s wrong with you?”
I didn’t even know how to respond to what she was saying:
- It’s interesting how she justified not pouring drinks at the seat by claiming the captain said the flight would be bumpy; the cabin manager didn’t mention this, and this was probably the smoothest long haul flight I’ve had in a long time, as there was no turbulence the entire way (which isn’t to say it’s not true, but it sure is a convenient excuse)
- She claimed she raised the partition for me so I could rest, which is a minor point to make, but is also an outright lie; it was raised when I boarded, as you can see in the pictures I took when I boarded the plane, and even when I took pictures of the seat in bed mode
- The only thing she said that was accurate is that she got me whatever I asked for; yes, when I pushed the flight attendant call button to ask for some water, she didn’t deny me, how generous!
- Just because I was raised right and say “thank you” when I’m served something, doesn’t mean that you’re providing good service
- I love how she tried to manipulate me into saying she was providing good service by telling me that I was very nice to her, and how she was telling the crew about that; like, what does that have to do with anything?
Our conversation must have gone on for five minutes, and it essentially consisted of her trying to convince me that my perception was wrong. She did 80% of the talking, and I did maybe 20% of the talking. It seemed like she didn’t want to end the conversation until I apologized to her for misinterpreting her service, and acknowledging that it was actually world class.
So I was the one to end the conversation. I just said “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to tell you, clearly we have very different impressions of what happened.”
I find it incredibly unprofessional how the cabin manager relayed this feedback to the flight attendant and then “unleashed” her on me. That’s awful leadership. If anything, he should have accompanied her if she was going to approach me directly, or make it clear that she should keep the conversation brief and be apologetic, rather than trying to convince me of a non-existent reality in which she’s providing service that’s worthy of an award.
Suffice it to say that deplaning was a little awkward…
Bottom line
#%&@, I had one strange flight on Oman Air. The service was bad, a total contrast to the exceptional service I had on my Oman Air flight the night before. The flight attendant taking care of me just wasn’t good at her job, didn’t care, or both.
I’m not a combative person, though OMAAT readers have often told me I’m too passive, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to share some feedback with the cabin manager. For airlines that have cabin managers, the intent is that they’re in charge of the crew, and are people you can share feedback with in a constructive way.
Well, that’s officially the last time I’ll be trying that. The cabin manager was defensive, while the flight attendant then tried to essentially convince me of a different reality.
Dear OMAAT readers, what do you make of this mess?!
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