Damage control at Sterling

Sterling announced yesterday that the pilot strike had been called off, today I received an email from the airline, which I can only describe as damage control.

When I say damage control, I don’t mean the apology that might have somewhat repaired the relationship between Sterling and its customers. An apology that might have read something along the lines of:

“Dear customer, we realize that the past couple of days have been nerve-racking for you. Please accept our sincerest apologies for the stress we have put you through and be assured that your ticket with Sterling will be honoured. ”

Instead the email read:

“Have a nice trip – We wish you an excellent trip!

You will soon be travelling with Sterling — and we want to wish you a very good trip.

We know you have a lot of planning to do before you travel. That’s why we have assembled as much information as we could to help you in your preparations — as well as a selection of special offers that match your trip.
We hope you can make use of the information found here.

We look forward to seeing you on board.

Best regards

Sterling”

The email then continued with a long list of attempts at squeezing more money from me in the form of in-flight meals, choosing my seat (yes, they actually charge for that), car rentals, accommodation and parking at Copenhagen airport. The parking offer, I might actually have been interested in, except I’m going from Gatwick to Billund and nowhere near Copenhagen airport.

There was no mention of the called off strike, nor of the announced danger of bankruptcy, just typical low-cost airline greed.

Damage control of your bottom line perhaps, but also further customer relations damage.

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