Time to Bitch

Blaze, Its a difficult one & I can understand how you would be upset. I'd be surprised if someone at 140kgs hasn't had issues with planes and his weight in the past but clearly having been told it would be OK, you have a right to be upset. Given that mistakes do happen in any business, I wonder what the company could have done to rectify the situation. Its unlikely you will be back to the Bungles in the near future so a free flight is of no benefit, you hadn't paid for his flight so a refund wasn't appropriate & so whilst a solution could have been made on the ground at the time, these people are remote employees not paid to make these sort of executive decisions. Now you are complaining to management, it is too late to offer a solution. In hindsight of course the trip from TC would have been the best option, & you could still have driven out to the Bungles to experience from the ground. By leaving it till you got there, you risked bad weather or plane problems or a sick pilot... any number of reasons you might have missed out. We tried to get a Bungles flight when we were there a few years ago and they were fully booked. We couldn't afford to hang around for the extra couple of days so we missed out. Disappointed, but we have so many other fabulous memories of the Kimberley, it doesn't really bother us. Take away all the great things & forget about the things you have no power to change (& buy the video of the Bungles instead)

First let me say that I'm sorry you had such a bad experience and I fully understand why you're not happy with the company. That should never have happened.

There are far too many companies that behave in that manner, its a culure of "give us your wallet and *&^^ off ! You must of made a mistake, tough ! No responsibility taken. etc etc.

You're correct, they all try and cover their own rears.
In the past the poor consumers have mostly had to shrug it off and say to themselves "Oh well ya get that". But with the advent of the Internet and forums such as this, it is no longer the case. If enough people see enough reports of poor experiences then they will think twice before dealing with these companies.
Being a business person you would know that the best advertising is word of mouth.

My attitude is that if I accept money to do or supply anything and something goes wrong, then I have to fix the situation to the customers satisfaction whenever possible.

If you accept the Kings shilling then you march to the beat of his drums.

I very much sympathise with Blaze, as we too experienced something similar with the same company operating out of TC. In our case had decided that as we were heading in that direction from Katherine we would stop and take our chances with bookings. 2:00pm or 2:0 , I forget the time of the next flights now, but we were assured that as it was 1:00pm and the staff had our name on the list we would be on the flight.

A small backpacker type tour bus arrived just before the flight time with the atypical blonde, blue eyed nymphettes busting with excitement. Guess who did not have room for my wife and i to take the flight due to an "oversight" in the booking schedule. Seems the young ladies had taken precedent. A refund was offered of course.

We smiled as best we could, jumped into our LC and continued on our way around Australia, vowing never to take a flight by that company again.

Perhaps on our next trip to my homeland, next April, we might just rent our own damned chopper, yes I have a licence, and see the magnificent Bungles from the air.

I have related this story to our friends who are also expats and others who have been keen to take the trip. My suggestion these days, thanks to that company, is to drive in and walk about one of the most beautiful areas of Australia.

We took the flight from inside the Bungles and enjoyed it immensely.
We also had no complaints at all.
However in other places have had trouble with firms that have the rip off mentality.
I usually complain long loud and bitter to the people involved at the time.
Before you say that they are only employees (which they usually are) if you do not let them know that you are unhappy then they cannot tell their bosses.
Later when you calm down you can write to the company/firm and register a formal complaint.
Keep all correspondence so that you have a record.

Regards Dodg.

I'd be very concerned that the 'devil may care' approach this company has displayed toward customer bookings etc may well extend to safety. You can bet your boots when one of their aircraft goes down the manager will still be covering his butt.

Not a good move on their part. Basic business, one bad experience is told to a minimum of 7 people, so far this post has been read by numerous people who in turn will no doubt tell others. The cost to the company will eventually be measured in many thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Serves then right, for the embarrassment to your friend/s, yourselves and not to mention the time and money you spent on their advice.

Personally the flight we had over Purnululu, was the most exhilarating and memorable experience of our trip through the Kimberley's.

I hope the management of this company read this forum and take heed.

Dunc.

As long as you have the letters to back up your claims, I don't see any harm in naming the company involved instead of tiptoeing around the name.

Hi Blaze,
I can sympathise with you in regard to the "stuff it" attitude of some operators. About 3 years ago, we were staying at a bush camp in the Kimberley, where a camping tour was in for the night. A large roast beef dinner had been prepared by the bush camp operator, the guests were sitting down to dinner, the camping tour guide drinking at the bar. One of the guests asked about the vegetarian dinner that she ordered. The guide seemed put out by his beer being interrupted, but eventually chased up the cook, who emphatically stated that he hadn't been asked to prepare a veg dinner. The guide just said "oh, perhaps I forgot". With that, he went back to his beer, and the cook shrugged and said he was now off duty. I think the guest went hungry that night.
Neither the operator nor the cook were prepared to accept ownership of the problem. The guest will probably bad-mouth the operators in the Kimberley from now on.
Gerry.

Hi Blaze,

While I do have sympathy that your day went so wrong (no matter who was at fault ) I don't want to get into the who did and said what, that's not what prompted me to make a comment.
I have to be the other voice here as I find the comment about possible lack of maintenance from you Bob pretty unfair.
We have been a customer of Heliwork for 20 years both for cattle and tourism work. I myself have flown many many hours in their choppers including lots of cattle mustering work which is far from gently flying along in a straight line I can tell you. Haven't had a crappy pilot yet, they train them well.

I have always found them to be fair to deal with and if some of their staff did make a stuff up I will take bets that the staff would have copped it big time. So in fact you probably did achive your aim and stop any errors of the type you say happened, happening again.
That was all you really wanted wasn't it.

It was the maintainance comment that bothered me enough to put in a comment. For the whole 20 years we have seen them instantly ground any machine and rush all the way out here to fix even the slightest possible problem. Thay take no chances at all from what I have seen.
Furthermore I also have to say that due to their high maintanance at the base workshop they have very very very few problems when on the job.
I have had a couple of forced landings neither of which were with Heliwork which also goes to say something.

In case you are wondering yes I am friends with a lot of them but no we get no commissions, etc at all from them so I have no financial gain at stake here, I am speaking simply as a customer.
I just think it unfair & boardering on slander to bring possible lack of maintainance into what was only a sales staff isssue.
The company name may not have been used till now but as was pointed out as they are the only company at both places there was never a doubt who was being talked about.

I also want to just say that we deal every season with thousands of people who have just returned from a flight with Heliwork at the Mitchell Plateau and I have seldom heard any complaints in all the years they have been offering the flights up there. Everyone raves about the flight they just had, as has been said, just a great flight up there isn't it.
Almost every year they also win one of the top tourism awards, which considering the stiff compettion for providing of tours in the Kimberley is darn hard to achive.
I guess they must be doing it right most of the time !
cheers, Anne

Blaze,
Have a look at Vic Widmans column in the latest Overlander.
Similar problems, ring well ahead of time to make the booking, ring 24 hours to confirm the booking, arrive and they say they do not have a booking.
I think Vic says it all in his column.

Wayne

Hi Blaze,

Nice to hear from you, thanks for your reply.
Regarding some earlier comments about the company being responsible to stick to a quoted price. We had a contracting business for years and yes if we underquoted we also wore it but doing the same with thousands of verbal conversations by changing sales staff is not so simple.
Then also some people in fact cause a stink over nothing totally on purpose in the hope of a discount. Because of these unscrupulous people it is becoming harder for the legitimate complaints to get the same response.

About staff copping it, I simply spoke from my experience, the odd time some incorrect info or something may have been given I know people were instantly hauled for it. I also think it possible that even if the letter writer chose to defend the other staff when writing to you it certainly doesn't indicate that the staff didn't cop it anyway.
I can tell you from experience it's a bad position to be in. I wish so much that all our staff over the years had always said and done as I would have wished them to do, never mind also me personally, I've had regrets about how I recacted later as well.
I agree as a general rule the customer is always right but while nothing to do with you or your problems sometimes I wish people could swop jobs for a while. It would make us all more understanding of the problems faced in each others work.
A lot more than people realize it is small percent group that sours everyone, they are the ones that get real upset because they can't get fuel 4 hours after we closed or they want their tyre fixed instantly at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. at night - no I am not kidding.
It is no lie to say that most every day we get asked for something that is clearly stated either in advertising or on signs here is either not available or not available at the time requested. It's not so bad to just ask but what is bad is the nasty stuff that follows when we say , no sorry. Trouble is by the time you put up with this abuse & nonsense over & over you have to be very very careful it doesn't alter your attitude to a legitimate complaint.

I have lost count of the number of times we have had a message brought in by one traveller to say another is broken down and asking for us to please send help. Hundreds of km's later the mechanic gets to the place to either find the vehicle gone because someone figured out the problem or to find another traveller there fixing if for free. We have then been told, oh we don't need you anymore.
This happened again just recently, the mechanic said, yea ok but what about the 3 hours & 200 km of travel. The reply was, well you didn't do anything & we are not paying.
Needless to say after taking the risk for 20 years we have finally had enough and the mechanic simply won't be departing any more without at least the request for help being in writing.
That is a sad sign of the times when it comes to that in the bush ah !

Something that I did wonder is that at the Plateau and at Turkey Creek never mind at every place along the road there are large stacks of brochures with prices on all their flights from everywhere. When making the decision to even call in at Turkey Creek to see about choosing a flight from either there or the Bungles had you not used any brochure for info to see in advance what was offered and what it may cost you from either place.

As I said it honestly wasn't the fact you chose to complain about a service you received or info that you were given or even the response you got that prompted me to make comment. I just didn't see what the other follow up comment had to do with anything under discussion. I just tried to point out the comparison was irrelevant, that the comments were unrelated to the issue and that I had seen another far better side !

The pilot talking to you about mustering is a puzzle, he did not explain very clearly at all. I am no expert but I can do better than that.
There are for lack of better words call them 'muster' pilots and there are' tourism' pilots. A muster pilot may do some tourism work, but unless endorsed correctly not the other way around. To be a mustering pilot requires a special ' low level endorsement ' added to the normal license. The endorsement covers them for low level work and the training is intense.
So yes of course any pilot without the correct endorsement is not allowed to do any muster work, much as they may like to.
The people trained as muster pilots are most often people who have had on ground experience with cattle as no matter how well you fly if you have no idea how cattle can behave when being mustered then you are not likely to be so much use.
While this may not be the case in this instance, I have heard the odd sour grapes comment from tourism pilots who want to be muster pilots but have no idea of cattle and no stock experience at all. It is far less likely any company will do the extra training and endorsements for these people, therefore that pilot may take a ' verbal shot ' at the muster boys. Hotdogs, indeed !
Different choppers are also used for mustering work, each chopper also requires corresponding training, a jet ranger for example is totally useless for the purpose of mustering, they are built for comfort and carrying capacity not to duck in and out around trees chasing cattle at very low levels, while an R22 with one passenger seat only would not often be used for tourism but is for mustering. The company also runs a large fleet of muster choppers.
Anyway most of that was totally off the subject, again I was just putting forward another point of view and also wanted you to have a better explanation of mustering work.

Doing tourism we do all try hard to get it right, people complaining about the Kimberley experience is no good for any of us.
I talk to much, I now have to stop enjoying playing on forum and do some work !
regards, Anne