Leaders. Learn from this man please. Nice one Mr Peter
This is the email from Malaysia Airlines CEO Peter Bellew.
Edit: Suanie T pointed out that the uploaded image of the letter is difficult to read. Therefore, I am appending the text version below.
6 February 2017
Dear Mr. Tan.
Thank you for your open letter to the Borneo Post. On behalf of the Malaysia Airlines family I humbly apologise. That was no way to treat another human being. Your journey was terrible.
Excuses. Who really wants to read my excuses? No one I am sure. In your booking we were notified that you were “OKU” which is Bahasa for Orang Kurang Upaya which means you have a disability and needed a simple meet and greet assistance. Unfortunately, before you arrived at check-in we did not know you needed a cabin wheel chair or special assistance which has a code of WCHC. Honestly - the global airline process is poor. For our future customers we need to find a new and better way.
On arrival at Bangkok the baggage agents did not read the tag correctly on your wheelchair and with a stupid error sent it direct to the baggage carousel. Our Malaysia Airlines cabin crew did go to some lengths to retrieve the wheelchair but it was some distance away in the terminal. Our crew are very upset at your treatment.
Modern jet aircraft are still very poorly designed to accommodate disabled customers. I personally will now review the safety of how we speed these exits from our aircraft.
I can say sorry all day but I don’t believe that helps you. A more constructive approach I think would be to meet with you in person and members of national organisations that represent people with mobility challenges. There has to be a better way to help you. If you will grant me the time I will arrange to meet you at your home or organize to meet you in Kuala Lumpur.
Your complaint raises a much broader question. How can Malaysia Airlines survive in the modern airline industry? Our only hope is to offer extraordinarily good customer service. We simply must be the most customer friendly airline in Asia. That will be difficult but it can be done. In 2017 we are starting to switch mindset from pure survival to making the airline the pride of the nation again. That will be a road with many twists but we have made great progress on our journey.
We are adopting right now a Golden Rule. Kampung boys from Ireland to Malaysia were taught this by their mothers. It’s in the Koran, Bible and every religious text in the world. Simple. Treat other people as you wish to be treated yourself.
Mr. Tan, I promise you I will work hard to get that Golden Rule in operation throughout Malaysia Airlines. We have wonderful staff. But they are tied down with red tape that currently prevents them from treating customers as they would wish to be treated themselves.
Pledging to obey the Golden Rule will also change the way we treat our own colleagues, all customers and the environment.
Thank you again for your letter and I sincerely regret what happened. Hopefully we can work together to use the Golden Rule to create a new and better way for our disabled customers to see that the journey itself is the reward.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Bellew
