Dear all,

I am posting this as a warning to anyone considering a flight on airberlin. I was supposed to fly out of Düsseldorf (DUS) and was already at the gate waiting for the boarding call. At first the delay was announced to be one hour. One and a half hours after the original scheduled boarding time, the flight was suddenly canceled without any reason given.

The worst thing is that I had experienced the same scenario two months ago (except that we all had waited for three hours then). Flights get canceled all the time, yes. What is really inacceptable though is how AB (mis-)handled the whole situation both times. There were no information given the whole time, largely because AB hardly has any staff airside. Those contraced to do the work said they couldn't help us. That may be true, but the question is, why contract staff that is so blatantly unhelpful in the first place?

After retrieving our bags (which took forever) the wait at their counters outside the secure area (in order to get rebooked–that is, on other means of transport) was unsurprisingly very long. When I finally got through, the agent did not even offer any kind of apology (seriously, that is the least what one can expect). I told her I had been through the exact same situation two months earlier, while showing her my FF card – nothing. Absolute indifference. She said that there was no more flight to our destination that day, so all we could do was take the train instead (DUS is supposed to be their homebase – what about spare planes, rerouting via TXL or HAM?).
I eventually arrived at home some seven hours later than planned.

Synopsis: The nature and handling of these two incidents have really put me off flying AB. It seems like their service quality is deteriorating even faster than their financial situation (go figure). If you want to complete your journey in a timely and less-stressful fashion, without taking any chances, I strongly advise against choosing AB. As the saying goes – fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Thank you for reading and best regards.

[Edited 2014-12-20 11:18:27]

Quoting aloges (Reply 1):

Thanks for the tip, I'm actually still in a proceeding regarding the first case two months back. Looks like I have another one now.

Quoting Fallap (Reply 3): Darn, sounds like a not so pleasant experience

At least the train ride was excellent. DB isn't perfect, but at least they don't outsource their staff, and I have found them to be very polite and actually truly helpful most of the time.

Quoting debonair (Reply 4):

I sent you a PM.

Quoting Steelyman (Reply 5): Ground staff are paid ridiculous wages

Completely agree. I have to stress that all passengers stayed calm and reasonable despite the inconvenience. All we asked for was for them to get some actual AB employee to help us out while we were waiting for our bags. I don't think that it is too much asked. But as such, my criticism was more directed at AB for not having enough of their own staff even though it is one of their biggest bases.

Quoting b777a340fan (Reply 8): Good luck! I'd love an update to see if you were able to get anything back.

Thanks, I will report back as soon as I hear something from the offices handling my case(s). At the moment I have two open ones. The first one may be a bit more tricky because according to official statistics and AB themselves, the flight operated while in fact they said it was cancelled and subsequently rebooked us all. I am suspecting foul play here and have let the office know this.

Indeed AB has competitive fares, but I've found their mainline cabin crews not to be as good as their subcontracted counterparts on the Q400 flights (which is surprising, as the latter ones are less-well paid).

[Edited 2015-01-05 09:32:43]