"My most horrific airline service experience was with Cebu pacific that only happened on August 18, 2008. I will not reiterate up to the smallest detail but here is what happened. Flight 5J 678 bound for Shanghai from Manila that left on 8:20 PM on August 18, 2008. The plane left NAIA 3 on time. I’ll call that lucky because the last time i flew back to Shanghai on April 27, 2008; the plane was delayed for 4 hours with the alibi of “Full Maintenance Check”, a retarded excuse compensated by a free cheesecake and soda before boarding. Unjust compensation.
August 18, was worse. Around 11:30 PM when the plane was close to Shanghai, the Pilot announced that we should stay on air for 20 more minutes because Shanghai wouldn’t allow us to land due to bad weather, its an acceptable excuse. After 20 minutes of flying over Shanghai, the Pilot again announced that we were not allowed to land in Shanghai so we needed to go to Hong Kong, a 1.5 hours flight from Shanghai to monitor for the weather to improve. a little bit doubtful excuse which can still be acceptable because no one can jump off the plane anyway.
August 19, 2:00 AM we reached Hong Kong, about two hours delayed from my expected arrival in Shanghai. As the pilot announced, we should keep our safety belts on until we reach the terminal. I assumed i could do a little shopping at the HK airport or maybe have some coffee or a little rest to ease my sore hip because their seats cannot be reclined. At the HK airport we never reached the terminal, we waited in the middle of the maintenance bay for more than 1 hour more just to be dumbfounded that we weren’t going to the terminal anyway. So everyone just sat on the plane waiting for developments about going back to Shanghai.
3:00 AM, after almost 1 hour of waiting, the pilot announced that we will go back to Manila to change flight and stated that there is a plane waiting for us in Manila. After an excruciating 7 hours for a supposedly 3.5 hours of flight from Manila to Shanghai; they announced that we will go back. This really sucks! but what can any passenger do? Nothing but accept and follow. I was worried about a 10 AM meeting with a client which i calculated that i could still make it if we were to arrive in Manila at 4:30 AM and return to Shanghai at around 8 AM max. So we left Hong Kong for Manila.
4:30 AM, Cebu Pacific flight 5J 678 reached Manila. I had been suffering from lack of sleep, sore hip, worry that i might not make my meeting, hunger, boredom and my iphone had no power anymore; all i can do during the rest of my flight was listen to music to calm me down. I also have browsed the Smile Magazine several times from page to page just to keep myself from getting bored. Still i look at the bright side of everything because there is nothing else i can do. Some people were complaining, kids were cranky, parents try to keep their kids calm, others were talking at each other trying to come up with their own theory about what transpired during the 9 hour dreadful experience. No one among us passengers anticipated that the worse was yet to come.
Everyone was deceived by the “Lying Captain” that there was a plane waiting for us to fly us back to Shanghai. The male crew announced that the airline supervisor will attend to us for boarding notice. After a few minutes the airline supervisor arrived, we were all waiting for the announcement but she never used the airline microphone; she was talking to just one passenger telling about the details. Hellloooo!!! like there are a bunch of us waiting for your news, whoever you are. After a few minutes, the word spread like fire. According to rumor about 12 feet away from the source, the airline supervisor said that the flight will be at 8:20 PM. thats 16 hours from the present time while the pilot stated that there is already a plane waiting for us in the airport when we arrive in Manila. Very unacceptable lie. What made it more worse was that in other airlines, they see to it that passengers are taken cared for during the delays for food and accommodation and transportation from the airport to a hotel and back to the airport on the scheduled flight again. Cebu Pacific said that they cannot shoulder accommodation because they claim that it wasn’t the airline’s fault. Blame it on the weather excuse! It is totally unacceptable and retarded! Definitely my meeting was canceled and i suffered tremendous losses on my business because of this foiled flight.
Everyone was sent home and asked to return after 14 hours. I am from Baguio City about 8 hours bus ride to Manila, i do not have relatives in Manila. Good thing i can afford a cheap motel to wait for 14 hours. How about the other passengers who cant afford a hotel? Worse is how about the foreign passengers that consumed their visas? How about the passengers with kids? So much trouble burdened on everyone but not Cebu Pacific which supposed to be their responsibility.
Conclusion: Cebu Pacific truly offers cheap flights but it is not a rationalization that Cebu Pacific should neglect their passengers that way to cut costs and the airline should have contingency plans when these incidents happen. Cebu Pacific gets a 5 star on poor service, a 5 star on Negligence, a 5 star on making up stories and a 3 star on making alibis. These airline companies shouldn’t even be flying.
You can check my booking log. My seat was 9F window."
