CityJet plane to be named after ‘ultimate Welsh icon’
Posted: April 1, 2014 Filed under: Airline & Route News, Cardiff Airport & RAF St Athan | Tags: #nametheplane, BCY, Cardiff Airport, Cityjet, CWL, EGFF, Named, Ultimate, Welsh Icon, WX 1 Comment
CityJet Fokker 50 landing at Cardiff Airport ©Phil Woods
As it adds two new routes from Cardiff Airport, CityJet is to name one of its aircraft after the ‘ultimate Welsh icon’, to be chosen by the people of Wales.
The airline and the airport have launched a social media poll this week to ask Welsh people to vote for their favourite among six iconic figures: Saint David, Dylan Thomas, Gareth Edwards CBE, Owain Glyndŵr, Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson DBE and Simon Weston OBE. One of CityJet’s Cardiff-based aircraft will then be named after the recipient of the most votes on Facebook and Twitter.
CityJet has launched the poll to mark this week’s start of its newest route from Cardiff to Edinburgh, which sees three daily flights between the two capitals priced from £64 one way and £99 return. All fares include 23kgs of hold luggage and complimentary snack and drink service. The plane will then be named in time for the start of CityJet’s next new route out of Cardiff Airport, to Jersey, with five weekly return flights from 17th April.
Christine Ourmières, CityJet’s Chief Executive Officer, said “This is an exciting time for CityJet and further strengthens our commitment to Cardiff and the wider Welsh community. We hope that our new route from Cardiff to Edinburgh will provide vital connections for both business and leisure passengers in the Welsh capital.
“We wanted to give the Welsh public the choice of naming one of our planes as a thank you for welcoming us to the city. We look forward to the response and will name the aircraft during April.”
CityJet began flying out of Cardiff Airport in January with routes to Paris-Orly and Glasgow. The summer schedule will also see a third daily flight added to the Glasgow route on Thursdays and Fridays whilst Paris-Orly will be served every day of the week.
To enter the poll, CityJet and Cardiff Airport fans on Facebook will be invited to cast their vote by liking the images of the icon they want to win. On Twitter, followers can
vote by tweeting the name of their chosen hero and @-mentioning both @Cardiff_Airport and @cityjet along with the hashtag #nametheplane.
Lowest fares are available now and bookable online at www.cityjet.com.
BA and easyJet named among UK’s worst call centres
Posted: April 16, 2012 Filed under: Airline & Route News, UK Aviation News | Tags: Amongst, BA, British Airways, Call centres, easyjet, EZY, Named, UK, Worst Leave a comment
Easyjet’s customer complaints line comes second in the first league table of worst wait times at UK call centres.
British Airways also makes the rudest call centre list for cutting off customers who are either waiting in a phone queue, or cutting them off without even answering their call.
This happens to 4% of calls to the BA contact centre, according to the list compiled from more than 10,000 test calls made to more than 3,000 UK call centres between February and April.
The league reveals that people spend on average five days a year being kept on hold, which equates to 2% of the UK economy being wasted.
Technology entrepreneur Matt King analysed thousands of calls to create a list of the Top 10 worst waits.
If a caller had tried to contact all of the Top 10 worst-wait call centres using a mobile phone, they would have wasted a huge £94 just for the privilege of queuing to speak to a customer advisor, the research by King’s company WeQ4U found.
The worst offender was InHealth Netcare, a service used by National Health Service staff and patients to access test results, followed by easyJet’s customer complaints phone line.
Others in the top ten are customer services at parcel delivery service Yodel/DHL, TV provider Sky/Freesat, T-Mobile Direct, Apple UK, Ikea and HM Revenue and Customs, highighted as the UK’s rudest call centre.
WeQ4U founder King said: “UK callers waste five working days a year waiting to get through to busy UK customer call centres.
“That’s five whole days of productivity which will be wiped off of the new tax working year for every single person who wants to talk to a customer advisor at one of the UK’s service organisations. 2% of the UK economy wasted to be precise.
“That’s why we have declared April 16 National Queue Awareness Day because it’s the date in the new tax year when people’s lives are finally taken off hold and they can get on with contributing to UK plc instead.”
He added: “Technology has reached a point where there really is no excuse for this level of inefficiency. We will be repeating this exercise in three months’ time to find out if any of the main perpetrators have bothered to clean up their act.”
Wales Air Forum 